"Here in NY we have a program called “Healthy NY†which permits individuals without insurance to purchase a full-coverage policy at $125.00 per month. The policy includes prescription coverage with a $5.00 co-pay. It’s a better plan than most employer plans.
But the issue you seemed to be making wasn’t the cost of different policies, but whether or not the insurance companies were entitled to recoup some of their losses when victims or their survivors launched lawsuits against the public for accidents such as happened with the bridge tragedy. Some insurance policies have clauses in their contracts that permit this, simply because without them, they wouldn’t be able to provide coverage at low prices. If they have a situation where large numbers of victims are awarded extravagant sums, the expense could easily bankrupt the company.”
In Minnesota, we have MinnCare, which is a program to insure uninsured people, but it’s an income capped program (and actually one of the permitted “pilot programs” permitted under sChip). People making a median family income here aren’t eligible for it.
No, my issue isn’t whether the insurance companies can seek to recoup losses. It’s who they can recoup them from. Under our no-fault auto insurance rules, insurance companies pay their own policyholder’s bills, and then pursue claims against the insurance of the other party, and that’s fine. But- when an individual sues another individual or entity for wrongdoing or negligence that results in a permanent disability, as far as I’m concerned, the resulting award is intended to assist that individual in replacing lost income potential, and compensate them for pain and suffering, as the petitions for damages request. I don’t sue Company X “to reimburse my insurance company for their costs”. I sue them for “pain, suffering, and loss of wages”. My insurance company isn’t going to pay me for those, and they weren’t a party to the suit, nor did they pay any of the costs of pursuing the suit.
I mentioned the 35W disaster, which is a public situation, although private entities will likely get sued as well. If in fact the state settlement was limited to the families of the dead, the award would be approximately $5.2 million.
By contrast, CEO William McGuire of United Health got nearly $1 billion in stock options from the company on his retirement (which is being battled in court). So $5.2 million is going to bankrupt UH? Hell, they spend that every morning before breakfast. And as I understand it, most insurance companies also participate in secondary insurance pools, that provide them protection in the rare event that large losses exceed a certain benchmark in catastrophic cases.
All I’m saying, in the end, is that the issue of reimbursement to the insurer, and compensation to the victim are seperate issues. Lawsuit awards aren’t to compensate medical costs, unless that’s asked for by the plaintiff. They’re to compensate someone for permanent damage to their lives, and to assist them to live something approaching a normal one when someone else changes it permanently for the worse by fault or negligence. Insurance companies have no right to hitchhike on someone elses’ litigation.