Car Insurance Scofflaws Raise Health Mandate Doubt

Posted by admin on November 29th, 2009

Despite of law lots of drivers are not interested to carry their car insurance policies with them .

Nearly 40 years of car insurance mandates — which the insurance industry says have failed to make roads safer or lower auto insurance costs — raise questions about how well such mandates work.

“Not everyone complies,” said Scott Harrington, a professor of health care management and risk management at the University of Pennsylvania. “The auto insurance mandate is almost everywhere. But it’s not rigorously enforceable.”

David Sampson, president and CEO of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, said drivers’ personal financial situations, not the rules of their states, are a better indicator of whether they carry insurance.

States with higher poverty rates show a corresponding rise in uninsured drivers, he said. Simply put, people skirt car insurance when they can’t afford it.

They may do the same with health insurance, so the trick for Congress will be how to enforce a mandate without scuttling the program.

Set fines too low and healthy folks may decide to simply pay them and not buy insurance. But if fines are too high, voters may reject the plan or worry they could end up in jail for not getting coverage.

The House version would fine people up to 2.5 percent of adjustable income by 2017, while a Senate version would fine adults up to $750 a year.

Requiring everyone to buy health insurance can help spread the responsibility for medical costs. With proposed subsidies to help the poor buy into it, the so-called “individual mandate” gets Democrats closer to moving millions of uninsured into coverage plans.