LANSING — Last week, Reps. Kyra Harris-Bolden (D-Southfield) and Robert Wittenberg (D-Huntington Woods), along with Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) voted no on auto insurance reform passed by the Michigan Legislature:
“We have the responsibility as elected officials to provide a transparent and public process, but this bill has received no public hearing, no testimony, no fiscal analysis, and was only presented to Michiganders mere hours ago for review. This plan does not effectively prohibit discrimination for non-driving factors or close loopholes left for insurance companies to exploit,” Rep. Bolden said. “A plan that cuts health care coverage and only offers the potential of rate relief on our PIP is still a bad deal for Michigan families. These vital protections must be secured for the people of our state, and I will continue fighting until they are. I hope we can continue to work on this vital issue.”
“The people of Michigan are tired of hollow proposals that will do nothing to address the persistent problems facing our auto insurance system. This plan fails to ensure the viability of the MCCA, ban the use of all discriminatory non-driving factors in rate determinations or protect injured drivers with the coverage they need,” Rep. Wittenberg said. “Worse, this only serves to reduce costs by lowering health coverage provisions rather than considering the entire equation that goes into our premiums. Michiganders deserve real relief, not a short-sighted proposal that patches a broken system with nothing more than a Band-Aid made of empty promises. It’s time to get serious and begin discussing the proposals my colleagues and I previously offered to actually address these fundamental issues.”
“Today’s ‘compromise’ only stands to harm the most vulnerable — the catastrophically injured. Coverage shouldn’t be compromised for those who need it and I cannot stand by as the accident victims I know face a fate of greater suffering,” Sen. Moss said. “This legislation does not: Provide equal coverage to all motorists; address rate relief beyond the PIP line of your bill; or prohibit discrimination against specific communities. Further, the process of this bill is an affront to the open government for which I advocate, as it was written overnight and without public vetting or input.”
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