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Most people think, "It won't happen to me."

Host Intro: Today marks the beginning of Cover the Uninsured Week . . . and that includes covering people for auto injuries.

Most people think, ?it won?t happen to me.?   But car accidents DO happen, often leading to enormous medical bills.  To deal with this reality, all 50 states require car owners to carry some kind of car accident insurance.  Which kind is best?   That?s being hotly debated in Colorado, where critics say that the current accident insurance system is a mess.  The change happened in 2003, when backers of Governor Owens replaced No Fault auto insurance with Tort. Under the no fault system that Colorado used to have, car owners were legally required to buy what amounted to personal injury protection insurance.  If they got in an accident, No Fault paid their medical bills promptly, regardless of who was at fault.  And there was flexibility, to allow the payment of alternative health care experts as well as those trained in traditional medicine.  Under today?s Tort system, car owners are only required to own liability insurance . . . but it only pays out once fault has been established . . . which can take months, even years, plus costly court battles.  Personal injury protection insurance is now an option, called  ?Med Pay.? . . . a complicated payout system that doesn?t provide the comprehensive coverage that was universal under no-fault.  Most people these days don't carry Med Pay.  What's more, 17% of all Coloradans don't carry any health insurance at all.  Those people without health insurance include a woman we'll call Jane Doe.  Jane had the legally required liability insurance on her car . . . She assumed the OTHER driver's liability insurance would pay, if she was ever hit.  Let's listen in now to KGNU's Claudia Cragg, to hear what happened instead.

Groups Featured in this report include: Cover the Uninsured, covertheuninsuredweek.org
Colorado Center on Law and Policy, 303-573-5669, http://www.cclponline.org/
Long Feature Version of this Show, http://lavida.kgnu.net/lavidaradioshow
Morgan Carroll, 303-866-2942, http://www.repmorgancarroll.com/?Representative_Carroll_in_the_News:Insurance_Official_Joined_Industry_Spin_Campaign




Full Text:

This story comes with a health warning.   One every bit as serious as for smokers on cigarette packets:    Colorado Car Insurance Laws Can Seriously Damage Your Health'. Take Jane Doe, for example.   We have to protect her identity, till hopefully one day  her case is successfully resolved.     

I was stopped at a stop light and I was hit from behind.  Rear-ended.  And that created a severe whiplash.  Like a towel snapped.  A severe whiplash, which resulted in a closed head brain injury.  Severe pain in my head and many cognitive impairments and difficulties and a lot of neurological symptoms, that occurred right after that.  Mmm.  Let?s see . .   It?s so hard to even think of my words.  

And in the meantime, Jane?s been hit with over 12,000 dollars in debt and she doesn?t even know how she?s going to pay.

I've never been in debt.  I?ve always, if I used credit cards could pay it immediately.  I?ve been trying to use a zero interest credit car, which is maxed out.   I?ve been desperately looking for someone who could offer an interest free loan for the next year or two and a half years, to cover my medications and medical payments, until there is some settlement.


Now you know the consequences of NOT having Med Pay.  So, what is it?  Med-Pay covers your healthcare needs if you're injured in a car accident.  Personal injury protection, or PIP, was legally required in order to own a car 3 years ago, under no-fault insurance, and that paid out as soon as someone needed the coverage.  Today, under Colorado's Tort system, only liability insurance is required for car owners.  The driver who rear-ended our Jane Doe does have liability coverage, but the insurance company only needs to pay out if and when the courts decide he was at fault, which could take months or even years.        

Renee Beauregard of the Consumers United Association points out many drivers are happy with the switch because of reduced auto-insurance premiums.   But most, Beauregard believes, are not fully aware of the knock-on consequences of this new system,

Many consumers prefer the new system, others preferred the No Fault system and the reason for that is cost.The main difference is that under NO Fault, the old system,a consumer was covered for their own medical costs regardless of fault.  So, if a person got in an accident, was taken away by ambulance and was out of work, they were covered by their own insurance.,        


Some increasingly vocal Colorado legislators want Med-Pay to be required again.  They include Fran Coleman and Morgan Carroll, both members of the Colorado Auto Insurance Interim Committee.  Morgan Carroll:   

This is sadly not unique. Actually the situation is tragic as it is,
what people are facing when they're in accidents.  It's driving bankruptcies, it's driving foreclosures, people are losing....When you can't get the medical care you need, if it's catastrophic, you're losing your job, you're losing your source of income, there's no income replacement under the current tort system, You can't get access to care, very few people are willing to treat for free and you wind up in a moral situation as much as a financial one, where you've done nothing wrong, you've paid all your bills, you've done everything you're supposed to, and you?re even insured.

Many listeners will believe, wrongly, that in the worst-case scenario, personal injury lawyers are always available to untangle the most  tricky cases.   But lawsuits are expensive, even for attorneys and it can cost tens of thousands of dollars simply to prepare a case to trial.  This limits the number of attorneys who will take on cases with medium sized damages, much less for people who aren?t sure how they will pay.  Gerald Sloat, a lawyer here in Boulder, points out just how difficult it is to get a lawyer to take on a victim?s case.

All personal injury lawyers do a lot of cases like this but we only do a small percentage of the cases that people really need help with.  There aren't enough personal injury lawyers and there are too many of these cases.  There aren't enough hours in the day.

As an expert watching the pulse of Colorado citizens, Renee Beauregard believes this new system is entirely dependent on luck and interpretation   which may, or in the case of our Jane Doe, may not,    result in a good outcome for the victim.       

We keep whittling this down to everything 'depends',   It depends on your insurance company, it depends on what you asked for, it depends on what you have the ability to pay for,  but the bottom line is today that a consumer needs to make sure that they are covered for extraordinary situations.    


Insurance companies contend that the system IS working, but, Morgan Carroll points out that consumers today pay just as much to have both liability and personal injury protection as they did three years ago . . . and they often don?t realize that that they need to buy Med-Pay as an ad-on.  In Carroll's opinion, Colorado car insurance law is not better today . . . it's more deceptive.

The insurance industry has said this system is working.  They made record profits, it is working for them.   It is NOT working for consumers.    


But for Jane Doe, without MedPay   -- like so very many people in Colorado today, she is completely stuck

Until it happens to you, maybe you don't take an interest,  Maybe there isn't awareness, but this is a very, very horrendous, real,  concrete situation happening in this country. It's potential for all of us.

For KGNU, This is Claudia Cragg