Remember those sky-high premiums the insurance industry promised we’d all be paying if we didn’t reject Referendum 67 on last November’s ballot?
To refresh (that was way back in 2007): After the state legislature passed a law authorizing treble damages against insurance companies that unreasonably denied claims, the insurance industry got R-67 on the ballot, putting the legislature’s bill to a vote. Voters were then subjected to a big-money campaign claiming that insurance rates would go through the roof because of a flood of frivolous lawsuits.
“Not only does R-67 raise auto and homeowners insurance rates, it applies to small businesses and doctors as well,” the Reject R-67 voter statement said. “That means higher medical bills and higher prices for goods and services. Laws should reduce frivolous lawsuits, not create more. Reject R-67!”
Fortunately, the voters didn’t buy it. They approved R-67, sensibly believing that even Big Insurance should honor its contracts.
And what has happened to those insurance rates after R-67?
Well, here’s a sign. From a press release last week from the Washington State Insurance Commissioner:
“Washington’s largest writer of medical malpractice coverage for physicians and surgeons has called for a 12.5 percent overall decrease (emphasis added) in premiums for 2008 following what appears to be a record-setting year of profits for the company in 2007. ”
What? Record profits? Decrease in premiums?
You mean they played us? Hoped they could scare us into approving the practice of delaying and denying legitimate claims?
Yeah, but we’re smarter than that. Gotta love that voter skepticism.
Hmm, malpractice rates went down? Health insurance rates went up.
Did the failed R-67 rhetoric from the insurance industry sound familiar? That’s because it was the same load of hogwash the insurance industry and the American Medical Association fed us two years ago in 2005 when voters were inundated with ads supporting the passage of I-330.
For those of us whose memories are as failing as our republican administration, I-330 was the initiative brought by the doctors and insurance companies claiming we needed caps on pain and suffering damages and fees earned by lawyers who actually won negligence cases against shoddy doctors and hospitals. Without these caps and limits on fees the doctors and insurance companies argued, our entire health care system would fail and doctors would leave Washington in droves because their malpractice premiums would go through the roof.
Fortunately, the voters proved to be smart enough to smell a rat and I-330 was soundly defeated at the polls. At the same time, voters also rejected a competing measure sponsored by plaintiffs’ lawyers, I-336, which sought to make it easier to obtain information about repeatedly negligent doctors and malpractice incidents.
Fed up with the constant feuding between patients, lawyers, doctors, and insurance companies (and the fact that over $10,000,000 was spent contesting the two initiatives), Governor Gregoire convened a blue ribbon panel of the feuding parties and they hammered out a new law they all could live with.
One of the results of the Health Care Reform Act of 2006 has been the drastic reduction in malpractice premiums we now are hearing about. It also has resulted in better information available to patients about their doctors and the mistakes they make and also in fewer medical malpractice lawsuits.
So, yeah, the insurance companies tried to play us again – they weren’t satisfied with the compromise that was reached which resulted in successful change – instead they fought again, this time to the tune of $13,000,000.
How much great health care could our citizens have received for $13 million?