Detroit News. May 7, 2019
Senate bill sets marker for no-fault reform
Driving down auto insurance rates for Michigan motorists finally moved out of the starting gate Tuesday with Senate passage of a bill that would build more consumer choice into insurance policies. It’s not perfect, but it offers a framework for delivering meaningful reform.
The bill addresses the primary reason Michigan has the highest-in-the-nation auto insurance premiums: the unique guarantee in its no-fault law that provides unlimited coverage of expenses related to injuries suffered in an automobile accident.
Under the Senate reform, crafted by Sen. Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawson, motorists could choose between three tiers of personal injury protection: $250,000, $50,000 or no coverage at all.
Republican senators, all of whom voted in favor of the measure, say it will reduce premiums by 15% to 36%, depending on the level of protection selected. Motorists would also save $180 a year per policy through Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association fee reductions.
That’s a significant savings in premiums that average $2,600 annually in Michigan, and nearly double that in the city of Detroit.
But critics raise the valid point that moving the cost of catastrophic care away from auto insurance policies will simply shift much of it to the state Medicaid program, meaning taxpayers will foot the bill. Estimates are the change could raise Michigan’s Medicaid expenditures by $66 million over 10 years.
The health care industry, including health insurance companies, have largely objected to policies that don’t include personal injury protection, fearing they will be stuck with the costs for uncompensated care.
They’ve argued instead that auto insurance premiums should be addressed instead by cracking down on the practice of setting rates based on factors other than driving records, including ZIP codes and credit scores. Democrats mostly withheld their support for the bill because Republicans cut out provisions to eliminate those practices, and did not mandate insurers guarantee a premium reduction.
But the real issue with premiums in Michigan is the unlimited medical benefits, and costs are not likely to be substantially reduced without capping those payouts. Whatever form the bill ultimately takes must keep the focus on medical costs.
Other provisions of the bill offer promising reforms toward that goal. It would adopt a fee schedule for all auto-related medical treatment, would crack down on ambulance chasing by attorneys, and stiffen penalties for fraud.
The plan earned the endorsement of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce but other business groups are holding back, hoping that no-fault reform and the cost-cutting it would provide could be tie-barred to a fuel tax hike to fix the roads.
Considering only two Democrats, Sens. Adam Hollier and Sylvia Santana of Detroit, voted for the bill, its chances of getting the signature of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer should it pass the House is uncertain.
But at least it puts on the table an outline of reform that could be shaped into a bipartisan bill to deliver real relief to Michigan motorists.
Both the House and the Senate set no-fault reform as a top policy priority this year. Passage of the Senate bill moves them a step closer to that goal.
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Traverse City Record-Eagle. May 12, 2019
Outbreaks of argument with measles spread
Anyone remember the 2014 outbreak of whooping cough in Traverse City?
It happened swiftly one November in a wave that surged through area schools. It started with a smattering across districts - 11 cases at Grand Traverse Academy; seven at TCAPS; five at Westwoods Elementary School, one here, one there.
Then it climbed to 55 cases. By the end, the potentially fatal disease pertussis, known as the whooping cough, reached 90 people - mostly children.
The lightning spread of the disease - the threat to children, especially infants who can’t be vaccinated against it - spot lit our area vaccination rates, or lack thereof.
In several schools, nearly a quarter of the students weren’t vaccinated - by their parents’ choice.
Reporters at the time reached out to state and school administrators to understand our permissive policies on unvaccinated kids in schools, and also to parents to understand their reasons for not vaccinating their kids.
Many parents wanted to talk about their reasons - about which they felt passionately - but few wanted to do so publically for fear of shame or judgment.
Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties remain with some of the state’s highest rates of unvaccinated kids, but the conversation has changed.
Take a spin through the thread on the recent R-E story about our local health department’s reminder about containment and quarantine procedure given Michigan’s measles outbreak. You’ll find hundreds of comments on both sides aimed at educating the other.
An increasingly emboldened anti-vaccination movement is emblematic of our times - it wraps in all the mistrust, outrage, health consciousness, child-centrism, individualism, medical commercialism, tech-fueled tribalism and fear of our age.
Many of us also haven’t lived through an epidemic like polio or scarlet fever, when everyone seemed to know someone struck seriously ill. Instead we’re a culture of empowered individuals who attempt to correctly diagnose our own medical conditions online and watch long commercials that end with “ask your doctor about (insert advertised prescription medication here).”
“Do your own thing” is cooler than “join the herd.”
But being a part of the herd is the only way vaccines work. Herd immunity is the percentage of people who need to be vaccinated to stymie the spread of germs. It varies by disease.
For example 80-85 percent of any given population needs to be vaccinated to contain polio.
Airborne measles is more contagious - before the vaccine, one person with measles would infect 10-15 others, amplifying the spread. Measles’ herd immunity numbers jump to a 90-95 percent vaccination rate.
That’s a lot of people agreeing to be on the same team.
So let’s look for common ground. We should acknowledge that questioning the medical community and the government are healthy practices that have brought innovation, inclusion and safety for us all. We should also acknowledge that there’s a lot of garbage and fear-mongering online, including the 1998 debunked study that espoused the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, shot caused autism.
Both sides are also concerned about their kids. Can we just get rid of that arguing tactic altogether?
Getting vaccinated isn’t just about being personally disease-free. It also protects those who aren’t vaccinated, like babies and young children, often the most at risk in an outbreak.
But once these herd numbers fall, we need to know, so we can work together to get the numbers back up quickly.
There are many ideas out there - do away with vaccination waivers in schools (except in proven medical cases); allow children to choose to be vaccinated even if their parents disagree, mandate vaccinations in an outbreak.
But the horse is out of barn by then, running toward the herd.
Vaccination is a public health issue - like a neighbor with an open sewer. The neighbor may choose to live that way, but it impacts the air, water and people around them. So, for the betterment of society, the situation is not allowed.
Science evolves in part by questioning the status quo. But it takes a herd - of critical-thinking, questioning people who care about their children’s’ health and also of their neighbors - to stay healthy.
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Petoskey News-Review. May 10, 2019
Chambers take sensible approach with unified advocacy effort
For communities to grow economically, resources such as attainable housing and accessible child care oftentimes must be in place.
And while these needs may not touch as many individual lives in Northern Michigan as in the state’s more densely populated areas, getting the resources in place can be equally - if not more - vexing in this largely rural region.
With this in mind, we’re pleased to see chambers of commerce from around northern lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula taking steps in recent years to pool resources for state-level advocacy on the region’s economic development concerns. Their vehicle for doing so, the Northern Michigan Chamber Alliance, has drawn the involvement of more than a dozen partner and associate partner organizations, including the chambers in Petoskey, Charlevoix, Boyne City, East Jordan and Harbor Springs.
A full-time staff member with the alliance, Kent Wood, has a background as a lobbyist and has spent time interacting with many policymakers in Lansing. In recent years, the alliance has been sharpening an advocacy focus on the economic development needs of rural communities, most recently with this spring’s announcement of the “Four Pillars of Rural Prosperity” legislative agenda for Michigan lawmakers’ 2019-20 session.
The agenda groups the alliance’s objectives into four primary areas, including rural business development, talent attraction to rural areas, rural and small city housing development and access to quality child care. An overall goal is to advocate for rural-focused policies and provide tools to address bottlenecks to economic diversity and stability in Northern Michigan.
We see good reason for the alliance to frame its policy priorities using this set of interrelated “pillars.”
Housing opportunities affordable on working- and middle-class incomes, for example, are essential for attracting the talent the region’s businesses need to thrive. Northern Michigan’s seasonal resort and tourism economy presents some unique implications for housing availability - rental housing providers, for example, often find it more lucrative to market their spaces for short-term vacation rentals rather than year-round occupancy. At the same time, some who are exploring potential solutions to the region’s housing crunch find that state-level housing development incentives often are tailored toward locales with larger population bases - and the chamber alliance has promoted adaptability of these for more rural communities.
Northern Michigan’s rural nature also presents some infrastructure concerns different from those seen in metro areas. For example, the rollout of broadband internet access options, increasingly important for a variety of business needs, has been comparatively slow in some parts of the north. We see the chamber alliance offering potential to build awareness of these concerns among governmental policymakers and resource-providers.
As the alliance’s Wood noted in a recent News-Review story, progress on the four issue areas will require working through complex policy challenges with state lawmakers and regulators. Navigating these may not be easy, but we’re hopeful that the alliance supporters’ strength-in-numbers approach - and efforts to frame concerns regionally - will boost the potential for addressing these economic development and quality-of-life concerns.
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