As strange as it may sound, the health care reform could end up reducing vehicle policy rates.
The health care reform has certainly been an area in which there has been a tremendous amount of controversy could actually be paying off in an area that wasn’t its primary intention, in the form of auto insurance premiums savings.
According to the results of a recent study, the Affordable Care Act could be lowering other coverage costs.
Beyond auto insurance, it is also believed that the health care reform will also be lowering the cost associated with worker’s compensation. This indirect savings is the outcome of the fact that those are two types of policies that also have to provide payments for medical expenses when an injury occurs to someone who does not have health coverage.
Every year, auto insurance companies pay billions of dollars in medical care expenses.
This occurs when claims come in following car crashes in which someone was injured. The same can be said about injuries in the workplace that lead to worker’s compensation claims. The report indicated that in 2007, vehicle accidents generated medical costs to insurers of about $35 billion. This represented 2 percent of the total health care costs for the entire year.
As the number of uninsured people continues to shrink as a result of the Affordable Care Act, auto insurance companies will find that they won’t be required to put as much money aside to cover that type of care. This could, in theory, lower the premiums that drivers will be required to pay. Furthermore, at the moment there is a trend among some patients to use vehicle policy claims to obtain treatment for medical issues that didn’t actually result from the accident. As a larger number of those people obtain health coverage, they won’t need to do this as they will already have the plan that they need to be able to submit a claim.
While it is unlikely that the Affordable Care Act will have a tremendous impact on the premiums for auto insurance, said the RAND study’s lead author, David Auerbach, a policy researcher, “it may influence small and moderate changes in costs over the next several years.”
It is my understanding that the vast majority(If not all) health insurance plans being purchased through the marketplace EXCLUDE coverage for medical expenses incurred from injuries that resulted from an auto accident. In fact, here in Michigan MOST plans now use this exclusion, which has forced auto insurance e companies to become the primary health insurance from dollar $1. So my opinion is that this article is based on less than full information and misleads readers in development of an individual perspective of the ACA.
Health insurance does include injuries from car accidents in California but there is still the time off of work and other compensation that usually is involved in auto accident claims never have been or never will be covered under health insurance.