Chad Livengood: ‘Michigan's auto insurance law guaranteed Cadillac medical care. New law ended the warranty.’

Did you miss this excellent piece in Crain’s Detroit Business? Chad Livengood, a veteran reporter who has covered auto no-fault issues for years, compares the reformed auto insurance law’s fee schedule to a broken warranty sold to consumers by GM. He asks readers to imagine, “what if in the second year of the warranty, the government arbitrarily capped the reimbursement payments for GM dealerships by nearly half and forced them out of business?”

He continues: 

“Technically, the customer would still have their warranty. But it's hard to fulfill that warranty when there's no mechanic.

That's essentially what the Michigan Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have done to some 18,000 Michigan residents who were catastrophically injured in auto accidents, often through no fault of their own.

Auto insurance companies literally sold consumers the Cadillac of medical coverage for auto injuries through the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, a fund with $23 billion in driver fees sitting in the bank that's supposed to pay for lifetime care of the most critically injured motorists and pedestrians.”

Read the full piece in Crain’s Detroit Business, and be sure to check out this in-depth article by Chad around the fee schedule, highlighting survivor Kelley Miller, who is weeks away from losing vital care without a fix. Also, listen to Chad’s segment with Stephen Henderson on WDET’s Detroit Today, where he further delves into his article.