October 3, 2007 — It's taken years for the Legislature to create a potential crisis over no-fault auto insurance. Because of that delay, the Legislature has only 10 days to avoid the crisis.
Gov. Crist added no-fault to the agenda of the special session of the Legislature that begins today. The main item was going to be cutting the budget, but last spring legislators couldn't agree on whether and how to continue the no-fault system. So, the system ended Monday, the deadline the Legislature gave itself in hopes of forcing a decision.
No-fault requires drivers in Florida, even if they have health insurance, to purchase personal injury protection as part of their auto policies. In theory, this avoids many drawn-out lawsuits over who is to blame in minor accidents. The coverage requirement is only $10,000, an amount that hasn't changed since Florida started no-fault more than three decades ago.
But some insurers, notably State Farm, don't want to pay those claims. Ending no-fault, though, would force drivers without personal health insurance to seek uncompensated care in emergency rooms. The hospitals don't need that, and neither does the state. Republican legislators have offered a plan. This may be a budget-cutting session, but no-fault should come first. On this issue, the Legislature already has missed enough deadlines.
October 3, 2007 — The goals are worthy, in fact, they are imperative, but they have been flubbed one after another: property insurance reform, property tax reform, no-fault auto insurance reform.
Now, lawmakers are gathering today for a special session in which they must cut $1 billion from their budget. They should stick to that, do it well, take a breather and return in orderly fashion to the other matters, and do them right.
But no, they are determined to rush and — probably — bumble again.
They let no-fault expire, leaving potentially thousands of drivers on the road without the mandatory personal injury protection, that's their only health coverage.
Now the leaders want to cram a PIP fix into this special session — and convene yet another quickie session right after this one to rescue the January property tax referendum.
That's the very ill-conceived constitutional amendment that a judge kicked off the ballot as confusing and misleading. It's impossibly complex, and House Speaker Marco Rubio wants to expand it.
A fix for PIP is within reach after years of dawdling, but a rush job can blow it again.
Can't Tallahassee learn from its mistakes? Let your leaders know you are tired of the haste that makes waste of these crucial issues.
Crist is right to add PIP to special session agenda Pensacola News-Journal
October 3, 2007 — Gov. Charlie Crist's decision to add automobile insurance — personal injury protection, or PIP — to the agenda of this week's special session of the Legislature was needed.
The decision to let PIP expire seems to have pleased almost no one but the insurance industry. If nothing else, it shows the powerful industry lobby is still alive and well in Tallahassee.
While it might be unfair, the fallout from the hurricane insurance fight left many people concluding that the insurance industry's only interest in killing PIP — backed by promises that it will mean lower premiums for policyholders — is that it will make more money. If premiums creep up again after a few years, well, no one would be surprised.
In fairness, it was the Legislature and Crist who made the most grandiose promises about cuts to hurricane premiums. But the industry went along quietly and allowed the perception to take hold.
Today, people seeing stiff premium increases blame the insurance companies — and are unlikely to believe the industry's contentions that killing PIP will benefit them.
On the other hand, the insurance companies appear to have a valid point that the lack of any real controls over costs and treatment has led to fraud.
But what they don't talk about is what the hospitals are talking about: With growing numbers of people lacking health insurance, eliminating PIP is going to mean that hospitals will be asked to absorb even more uncovered injuries than they do now.
The industry's take is that doctors, clinics and hospitals are jacking up medical bills paid by PIP by authorizing too many tests, treatments and hospital stays.
The hospitals reply that they are still losing money under PIP, whose $10,000 minimum coverage limit hasn't changed since 1979, but that they are losing less than they would without it.
The value of PIP is that it provides coverage for injured motorists without worrying about who was at fault in an accident. It also protects them against at-fault drivers who don't have insurance or don't have enough money to make them worth suing for medical costs.
Legislative leaders say they have worked out a compromise, but time could be short given the importance of the budget cuts also on the agenda. And sometimes the leadership is unable to carry the rest of the membership.
We suggested earlier that the Legislature should extend PIP for a year to give time to work out a sound compromise that protects injured motorists.
Barring a sound compromise, that still makes sense.
Revive 'no-fault,' slow down for fix Daytona Beach News-Journal
October 3, 2007 — Gov. Charlie Crist made the right call when he put the state's no-fault auto-insurance law on the agenda for the special legislative session that starts today in Tallahassee.
Now the issue rests in the hands of lawmakers, who can expect a siege of special interests trying to tweak -- or stymie -- legislation that would reinstate some form of personal-injury protection coverage for drivers. Until Sunday, drivers were required to carry $10,000 of personal-injury protection that covered their own care if they were hurt in an accident. Lawmakers complain that the system is too susceptible to fraud, and that complaint has merit, particularly in South Florida.
The law requiring PIP coverage expired Sunday, and an unholy alliance of auto insurers and trial attorneys would like to see it stay that way. Insurance companies seem to be pushing for mandatory bodily injury coverage, a system in which the policy of an at-fault driver pays for injuries to other parties in a collision. That still leaves many people uncovered; moreover, it is almost certain to spawn intensive litigation that will have to be resolved before doctor and hospital bills are paid.
If lawmakers listen to one group, it should be the hospitals. They've presented solid evidence showing that costs to emergency rooms across the state are likely to climb by $350 million statewide with the expiration of no-fault insurance. Costs to Medicaid and private health-insurance plans (which in turn pass costs on to policyholders and employers who offer coverage to their employees) would also increase, as the burden of caring for people injured in accidents shifts.
Lawmakers should also listen to their own common sense. Any requirement for newly defined coverage will have an immediate impact on Florida's 15 million registered drivers. Slapping something together hastily, with little public scrutiny and much meddling by lobbyists, is a near-perfect recipe for disaster. The best course is clear: Reinstate PIP as it existed before Oct. 1, while setting a timetable and a mechanism to carefully, thoroughly and publicly evaluate
Florida's insurance requirements for drivers.
Extend PIP Our position: Crist was right to resuscitate expiring no-fault auto insurance. Orlando Sentinel
October 2, 2007 — Given up for dead as late as Monday morning, the state's no-fault auto-insurance law is back on its feet again -- thanks to lawmakers doing what doesn't always come naturally to them:
Exercising leadership. Standing up to some powerful special-interest groups. And making sure their actions match their rhetoric.
Lucky Floridians. If lawmakers instead had sat back and watched the death of no-fault, which for almost 40 years has paid medical bills no matter who causes an accident, Florida would be a wreck.
No-fault's passing, which it's scheduled to do later this week if lawmakers don't resuscitate it, would leave Florida a state where protection against damage to automobiles is required, but not protection that helps people who've been harmed in automobile accidents. It would increase costs and the numbers of victims without health insurance.
But look what happened. Gov. Charlie Crist finally acted as governors -- as leaders -- must. He abandoned his maddening "I remain hopeful" and "I'm cautiously optimistic" comments and announced Monday that extending no-fault will be added to the agenda of lawmakers, who are returning to the capital this week to tackle the state's budget crisis.
He wouldn't have done that, however, if lawmakers didn't appear all-but-ready to give no-fault another go.
That's not what several large auto insurers would have them do. Fraud's been too big a drain on the system, they complain.
And it's not what many trial lawyers would have them do. They'd rather see a system where bodily injury protection is mandatory. Would they ever! Bodily injury protection would cost more than no-fault, and pay out only to victims of at-fault drivers. Who would help determine who's at fault? Why, attorneys, that's who.
These selfish interests look to come up short, though. Like other stakeholders in no-fault's future, they instead should encounter a new and improved auto-insurance system that will benefit most Floridians.
Much of the credit for that goes to lead negotiators Ellyn Bogdanoff in the House and Bill Posey in the Senate. These lawmakers talked publicly about how they wanted to improve the system. Many, though, thought they'd let the pressure not just of the attorneys and insurers but of health-care providers keep them from acting. Or, more important, from ultimately acting together.
They managed to do both, devising a plan that should trim fraud by making it far more difficult for charlatans to get rich on phony claims, and by instituting cost controls that will better serve the system's legitimate players.
Majorities in the House and Senate now need to do what's right. The hard work's been done for them. All they need do is approve the impressive work of Tallahassee’s leaders.
Fix PIP now: Legislature should save plan next week
by passing Sen. Posey's compromise bill Florida Today
September 27, 2007 — Want a laugh? Giant insurance companies are claiming they're being threatened by "special interests."
In the battle over whether to let personal injury protection auto insurance sunset Oct. 1 or save it, an insurer-backed group called Floridians for Lower Insurance Costs is trying desperately to shut down any effort to keep PIP alive.
A reasonable compromise bill hammered out by Senate Banking and Insurance Chairman Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, uses fee schedules to reign in PIP's health care charges.
But the advocacy group, with close ties to State Farm and Allstate, wants PIP dead. And their letter to Posey blasting the "special interests" who want to save it got him going.
"You must be kidding," he fired back. "You represent the biggest-spending special interest of them all!"
PIP should be added to the Oct. 3 special session on cutting the state budget and the bill passed, to improve a system that's worked for decades. Otherwise, up to 5 million drivers could be on the roads uninsured.
After the property insurance mess, Floridians don't need more insurance-related disasters -- so fix PIP, don't dump it.
Grab chance to reform, renew PIP insurance Palm Beach Post Editorial
September 24, 2007 — The compromise on no-fault auto insurance announced Friday won't make everyone happy, which is why the Legislature should pass it.
Unless the Legislature and Gov. Crist act, no-fault expires in a week. Under no-fault, which is designed to minimize lawsuits when accidents cause injuries, all drivers purchase $10,000 worth of personal injury protection (PIP) with their policies to make sure that anyone who gets hurt has medical coverage. If no-fault went away, so would PIP, but drivers still would have to purchase coverage for their vehicles.
As Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said in her letter last week urging legislative leaders to find a solution, "This means that Florida law will protect cars, but not people." In addition, drivers who didn't have health insurance and suffered injuries that weren't their fault might have to pay for their treatment or sue. That's the scenario no-fault is designed to keep from playing out.
Friday's compromise combined the Senate priority of a schedule for fees with the House priority of more crackdown on fraud. Rings of scam artists stage phony accidents and bilk the system with bogus claims that never go higher than $10,000. The proposal includes $2 million to prosecute fraud, more anti-fraud authority for the attorney general and new, tougher billing requirements. From the Senate comes a plan that sets fees for transportation to emergency rooms and hospital care.
Earlier on Friday, Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, had predicted that a compromise was coming and joked that it would be an "equal-opportunity offender," meaning that it would irritate most of the competing interests - doctors, lawyers, hospitals, clinics, chiropractors and massage therapists. He also correctly dismissed the idea that abolishing no-fault would mean big savings for drivers from not buying PIP. In fact, State Farm Insurance has been pushing to get rid of no-fault so it can save money by paying fewer claims. Over time without no-fault, Sen. Posey said, "I don't think consumers would save one penny."
The case to keep no-fault also got stronger last week with release of a report noting that if more drivers dropped their insurance, it would mean less money for the Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. It is financed with assessments on almost all insurance policies, not just homeowner coverage. Now, the House and Senate need to meet this week, before next week's budget session, and beat the Monday deadline.
September 23, 2007 — Florida's no-fault insurance law is due to expire as of Oct. 1. In Tallahassee, state lawmakers have been dithering for months over whether or not to extend the mandate that Florida motorists carry $10,000 in Personal Injury Protection coverage to help pay for the considerable medical expenses that often result from automobile accidents.
Because PIP has often been subject to fraud and overcharging, insurance lobbyists have been pressuring the Legislature to let the mandate die. But as state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has repeatedly warned, doing so would result in a lot of accident cases being resolved in court while a lot of Floridians would simply opt to carry no coverage at all.
At the end of this week, word came that lawmakers may be on the verge of an agreement to extend PIP. Whether or not the Legislature can act before the current law's expiration is uncertain. And by week's end few details of the potential agreement had been disclosed. Unfortunately, legislative leaders of the "Sunshine State" often prefer to do their dealing in secret.
Hopefully, however, there will indeed be a deal brokered to extend PIP, and the sooner the better. It would be monumentally irresponsible for Tallahassee to allow it's expiration.
"This is not the ideal way to do the public's business," Sink said during a visit to The Sun on Friday. "This is not the 11th hour, its the 12th hour."
Buckle up: Confusion ahead for motorists: Leadership to Avoid PIP Disaster Is Lacking The Miami Herald
September 17, 2007 — The biggest problem in Florida's auto-insurance stalemate is a lack of leadership. Legislators haven't fixed or replaced the existing no-fault law in the four years since they approved sunsetting the law on Oct. 1.
Lawmakers have failed to do their job. As a result, confusion and unintended consequences lie ahead for motorists. By default, the old system is set to disappear, and it is unclear how a new system might work. Florida will become the only state in the country that doesn't have mandatory medical coverage for people injured in traffic accidents.
This is unacceptable. Gov. Charlie Crist, House Speaker Marco Rubio and Senate President Ken Pruitt need to take a stand. They should insist that legislators finalize no-fault reforms. The reforms should be approved in a quick special session this month. Failing this, lawmakers should rewrite the law during the budget-cutting session -- now set for Oct. 3 -- and save Floridians from needless grief.
Keep good provisions
The task is doable, if the leaders have the political will. The biggest obstacle has been the competing special interests with stakes in the process. Most contentious is that the law requires personal-injury-protection coverage, called PIP.
PIP covers up to $10,000 in medical bills resulting from a traffic accident, regardless of who was at fault. Critics complain, with good reason, that PIP fraud is out of control. Yet every anti-fraud measure proposed raises objections from some interest group. Current proposals contain good provisions, for example:
A bill by Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, would cap attorneys' fees -- but it doesn't cap medical fees.
A bill by Sen. Bill Posey would set a medical-fee schedule, primarily 200 percent of the Medicare rate, and extend the no-fault law. Clinics would have to meet licensing and other standards to be reimbursed for care -- but there is no cap on lawyers' fees.
Agree on a solution
A compromise bill that caps fees for both legal and medical services would go a long way to curb fraud. Extending the PIP mandate also would prevent emergency rooms from being flooded by uninsured accident victims, the cost of whose care ultimately would be covered by all Floridians.
These are the prospects when 20 percent of Florida drivers have no health coverage other than PIP, which would become optional unless the Legislature acts. Even an extension of the flawed no-fault law is preferable to letting the 36-year-old law lapse without planning a thoughtful transition.
The Republican governor and Republican-dominated Legislature should be able to agree on a solution. Gov. Crist, Speaker Rubio and President Pruitt need to flex their leadership muscles. Now.
Florida motorists and taxpayers mustn't be left with no good option because elected leaders failed to act.
Leadership needed: Gov. Crist should step in to work out deal on no-fault insurance Orlando Sentinel
September 17, 2007 — Florida's personal-injury-protection law is looking a lot like a patient left to die because the attending physicians can't agree on how to treat him, and the administrator on call is out to lunch.
Sen. Bill Posey and Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff agree PIP's sick. Despite its nearly 40 years of paying out medical benefits for injuries suffered in automobile crashes, they say PIP can't last much longer because of too much fraud and abuse.
Each has proposed ideas on how to restore it to health. Mr. Posey's center on imposing rate schedules on hospitals and physicians. Ms. Bogdanoff wants to cap attorneys' fees.
But so opposed is each to the other's core idea for reform that as of Friday morning, they hadn't spoken to each other for about two weeks. Without their -- or someone else's -- intervention, PIP will expire Oct. 1.
That other someone is Gov. Charlie Crist. But where, oh, where, has the governor been on PIP?
On Aug. 1, he was saying it seemed "prudent" to extend PIP. "I'd like to see that, yeah."
"I remain hopeful. I'm cautiously optimistic."
That's not how the governor spoke in the weeks and months leading to reforms of the property-insurance industry and Florida's property taxes. With those populist causes, Mr. Crist promised action and worked lawmakers. But here, with a cause fueled not by voters' anger but by special interests with a stake in who gets paid and by how much, Mr. Crist followed his "hopeful" and "cautious" call-to-arms with statements to reporters that he's not overly concerned if the Legislature fails to act.
Lunchtime is over. Mr. Crist needs to manage this crisis.
"I saw the governor this afternoon eating lunch," Ms. Bogdanoff said on Wednesday. "I said, `What are we doing?' He said, `I want to continue it [PIP]. I want to continue it.'"
That will happen only if he pushes Ms. Bogdanoff and Mr. Posey, who largely represent the wishes of the GOP majorities in their respective chambers, to a compromise.
"I can't negotiate against myself," Ms. Bogdanoff notes.
There is room to negotiate, however. Both sides, for example, agree that hospitals seek too-large reimbursements for PIP users from the insurers. Where Mr. Posey pushes his rate schedule, Ms. Bogdanoff says making hospitals charge what's "usual and customary" would rein in costs.
Ms. Bogdanoff, Mr. Posey and Mr. Crist won't be able to blame their failure to retool PIP on the Democrats. Republicans control the issue, win or lose.
The sure loser, should PIP die, will be the state, unless 2 million uninsured motorists, greater insurance payments and new brands of fraud can be counted a victory. That's just the beginning of what analysts promise will follow PIP, should it disappear Oct. 1.
On fixing no-fault, no excuses St. Petersburg Times
September 4, 2007 — With new proposals circulating in both the Florida House and Senate, lawmakers have no excuse to let the no-fault automobile insurance law expire and chaos ensue.
If lawmakers have any doubt about their obligations, they need only look at the growing confusion and alarm among motorists in the state. With the law set to expire Oct. 1, motorists are being dropped into the middle of what amounts to a legislative-sponsored demolition derby.
Will they need new insurance coverage to replace "personal injury protection"? Should that coverage be for bodily injury or for medical payments or for uninsured motorists? Can they expect their health insurance rates to go up because PIP is gone? Can they expect to be hiring an attorney the next time they're in an accident?
These concerns may pale by comparison to the uncertainty created by the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. In the span of a month, it has told motorists it will no longer enforce any requirement for automotive insurance only to announce that it was wrong. It will monitor property damage liability, but then maybe not the same way as with PIP.
What lawmakers are beginning to see is the chaos they would create by eliminating PIP with no safety net for hospital emergency rooms, no clear alternatives for responsible motorists and no formal direction as to whether any other insurance would still be required.
With a special session on the state budget set for Sept. 18, lawmakers now have two proposals on the table that aim to keep and reform PIP. One, from Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, would make sure that most of the hospital and doctors' office coverage remains and that attorney fees in disputed cases are capped. The other, from Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, would set a fee schedule for hospitals and doctors so they don't charge full rates and would provide coverage at clinics only if they are owned by licensed physicians.
Most of the PIP abuse has come from clinics, which is one reason the attempt to impose fee schedules on attorneys and hospitals has been a sticking point. But both sides ought to be willing to compromise if the fee restraints are reasonable ones. For example, capping hospital charges for emergency services might be a fair tradeoff for increasing the coverage cap, $10,000, which hasn't changed in 36 years.
The special session is intended to focus on the state's budget shortfall, and it should. But Bogdanoff and Posey have created the framework for a compromise on no-fault auto insurance. Given some time and encouragement over the next few weeks, they may be able to help lawmakers find common ground and keep PIP from expiring. Motorists, and the hospital emergency rooms that often save their lives, need that protection.
