Under the proposed law, other sources of recovery such as federal, state, or private workers compensation disability and healthcare plans (including Medicare and Medicaid) will pay before the automobile insurance company provides coverage. This means that in many cases automobile insurance carriers like Allstate, GEICO and State Farm will pay nothing for damages inflicted by bad drivers. While your automobile insurance premium might decrease, you will find yourself paying more for Medicare/Medicaid and for private health insurance. Further, employers will see private healthcare and workers compensation premiums increase as more and more claims are simply shifted from automobile policies to their policies. What this system does is to force all good and bad drivers into the same pool of insurance. No longer will bad drivers be subject to having their insurance premiums rise as claims are paid. This law will shift responsibility from those who cause injury to everyone else.
The insurance companies will advertise this program by comparing before and after premiums. Look closely. Their before premiums will include bodily injury, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage and medical payments. The after premiums will include only this new bare-bones coverage. This savings could be achieved right now by merely declining to purchase any policy or any coverage beyond the bare bones coverage soon to be offered. What the insurance companies dont tell you is that what you will save in automobile premiums, you will be paying in health insurance premiums.
But that is not all. A national no-fault automobile insurance program would increase your federal taxes. Today, millions of Americans rely on federal or state health care, like Medicare and Medicaid, as their primary source of health care. These coverages pay only after automobile liability insurance has paid. Under the proposed law, these coverages would have primary responsibility for automobile injuries. This will result in a huge increase in the amount of money paid under the Medicare and Medicaid system. That money will ultimately come from you, the taxpayer.
If the bill becomes law, there will be a further undermining of the concept of accountability in our society. Bad drivers will lose a primary incentive they now have to drive safely: the higher costs of insurance. Further, the relinquishment of our constitutional right to trial by jury will be without substantial savings to policyholders. The only ones who will benefit from the proposal are the insurance companies. Good drivers and the American people deserve something better than this.