Michigan lawmakers could soon pass legislation restoring care services for thousands of crash survivors, some of whom that have gone years without proper care.
In 2019, lawmakers passed bipartisan reforms to the state’s insurance laws that shifted away from required unlimited personal injury coverage.
The move was designed to lower Michigan’s notoriously high auto insurance rates, but unintentionally left many crash survivors without the long-term care they needed.
Last year, a Michigan Supreme Court ruling was intended to restore full benefits for those injured before the 2019 reforms. But thousands of crash survivors still struggle to receive the medical or financial support they need.
“It’s pretty clear that auto injured patients are going without necessary care,” said Barry Cargill, president and CEO of the Michigan HomeCare and Hospice Organization. “The votes are there in the legislature and they need to come back and fix this soon.”
The reforms changed how some services were reimbursed, including many utilized by crash survivors. The legislation slashed rates for these services by 45%.
“You tell me one thing in this planet that cost 45% of what it did on Jan. 1, 2019,” said Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs. “And so what it ended up doing was driving all kinds of care providers out of business. So now not only do they do these people lose the coverage they had before — now they can’t even find caregivers, and they’re just in dire straits.”
Damoose says that legislation restoring proper reimbursement rates is long overdue. A package of bills doing so passed out of the Senate late last year, but has yet to receive consideration in the house.
“We’ve got to take action now,” he said. “We can’t just keep pushing this down the road because every time we do, more and more companies are leaving the state as fast as they can. It makes it harder and harder and harder for families to get the care that they need.”
The proposals establish what advocates say is a reasonable fee schedule for services provided and would allow many of those left behind to receive care. Similar proposals have fallen flat in recent years but have made progress in the democratic-controlled legislature.
Still, advocates feel they’ve been met with delays since the package passed the Senate.
“If the bills need tweaking, that also is a possibility when they’re in the house, but nothing has been done,” said Maureen Howell of We Can’t Wait. “And the governor’s party is in total control. We feel she could fix this if she wanted to get it done. And in the meantime, people that are injured after 2019 just are not able to get care.”
And while advocates say that some damage to crash survivors and the care industry is already done, supporters are hopeful that their advocacy will result in real change.
“If we can pass this, I can tell you that this helps restore my faith, and so many other people’s faith in the system, in the way the government works,” Damoose said. “Because this will pass for one reason and one reason alone — is that these families took action, and they came down here and they had their voices heard, and we will have acted upon what they did.”
The bills received bipartisan support and immediate effect in the Senate, meaning that the legislation would become law immediately if passed by the House and signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
