How Medicaid Expansion can Lower Your Car Insurance Premium

Expanding Medicaid could lower your car insurance premium. State legislators that refuse to expand Medicaid are probably raising auto insurance premiums.

Most states require drivers to carry bodily injury, medical payments coverage or MedPay, and uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage in their policies. All of that coverage pays medical bills of people hurt in accidents.

Medicaid is a state-administered, federally financed insurance program for the poor. Obamacare pays for Medicaid expansion to uninsured poor, non-elderly adults. Unfortunately, 34 states refused to expand Medicaid to cover those people.

How Medicaid Expansion can reduce Auto Insurance Premiums

Therefore, the only way uninsured and working-class people have to pay medical bills after an auto accident in those states is to sue somebody’s insurance company. Obviously, the insurance company will pass that expense onto policyholders in the form of higher premiums.

Persons with no job, no money, and no health insurance will have no choice but to sue you or your insurance company. Personal injury attorneys advertise on daytime TV because they know broke injured people are lying around at home watching.

Medicaid expansion will not eliminate every medical bill after an accident but it will reduce them. With Medicaid available many people will opt out of the hassle of filing insurance claims. Others will be less likely to fight insurance companies or dispute rejected claims.

Persons with Medicaid will be more likely to go to cheaper public hospitals and clinics that take it. That could reduce medical bills. Medicaid can drive down healthcare costs by mandating lower prices. Medicaid provides a steady stream of revenue that reduces the pressure on hospitals or clinics to raise rates.

A person whose medical bills are being paid by Medicaid will be less likely to call a personal injury attorney. Somebody who is not receiving collection notices from the hospital will be less likely to sue you.

What States are Expanding Medicaid?

The refusal to expand Medicaid is another way state legislatures raise your auto-insurance premium.

The bad news is that 36 states, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, South Dakota, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Nebraska, Missouri, Mississippi, Kansas, Idaho, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama were resisting Medicaid expansion. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation estimated that the health insurance coverage gap affected 2.223 million people in 2018. Presumably most of those people drive, which will affect auto insurance premiums.

The good news is that voters in three states; Nebraska, Idaho, and Utah, will probably approve Medicaid expansion in the November election. Voters, unlike the fools in the statehouses, understand that Medicaid expansion is good for everybody.

A Utah Policy poll found that two thirds of the voters in that state favored Medicaid expansion, I reported at Market Mad House. Voters in Montana are likely to continue Medicaid expansion in the Big Sky Country. Medicaid expansion has widespread popular support in Nebraska and Idaho, The Los Angeles Times claimed.

Persons angry about auto insurance premium increases should check if their state has expanded Medicaid. People in states that have not should call their state legislators to demand Medicaid expansion. If the legislators do not listen, it is time to circulate petitions to recall them or put Medicaid expansion on the ballot.

Medicaid for All would Reduce Auto Insurance Premiums

Medicaid expansion will not automatically reduce car insurance premiums but it can keep them rising.

States can achieve greater auto-insurance savings by allowing all residents to buy Medicaid coverage. Allowing organizations to buy Medicaid for  employees can lead to more savings.

Medicaid for all would provide low-cost comprehensive health insurance to everybody. Medicaid would cover most medical bills arising from auto accidents and eliminate the need for bodily injury and Med Pay insurance. Theoretically, that would reduce auto insurance premiums by a third.

We would enjoy similar savings if the federal government extended Medicare to all citizens. If you want to lower your auto insurance bill, you should support Medicare or Medicaid for All (single-payer health insurance).

Voting for politicians that oppose Medicaid Expansion will increase your auto insurance premiums. We need new thinking in America’s state capitols and under the Big Dome in Washington D.C.