Flood Concerns
“Within the time constraints available to us, we exhausted our legal options.”
—Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon comments on two lost attempts to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from beginning its 48-hour release of water into the Missouri River from an upstream dam. Efforts earlier by state of Missouri to stop the release failed. Nixon, who filed a lawsuit in March was seeking to stop the release and was joined by Gov. Matt Blunt and Sen. Kit Bond in citing concerns that the release could exacerbate flooding from recent torrential downpours. But U.S. District Judge Jean Hamilton said she found no evidence to show the corps was not following the law. She said the corps can change its decision to release water, or adjust flows, if warranted. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Nixon’s appeal of Hamilton’s decision.
Ohio Med Malpractice Reform
“We had to go to someone we didn’t know, who didn’t know my history, who didn’t know how my last two births went.”
—Bobby Cameron of Plain City, Ohio, comments on her distress of having a new doctor deliver her daughter when her obstetrician left the state because the cost of medical malpractice insurance was too high. “The experience just wasn’t the same,” Cameron said. Five years after a law trying to reduce the malpractice rates went into effect, Ohio has fewer doctors who deliver babies than at the height of protests about high costs. Ohio had 1,327 doctors listing obstetrics and gynecology as their primary specialty at the end of 2007, a 5 percent decrease from 2002, according to an Associated Press analysis of State Medical Board numbers. The overall number of doctors in Ohio rose during the same time, from about 28,000 to about 30,000. Those figures represent all doctors and not just those in high-risk specialties. The Republican-sponsored 2003 law caps most jury awards for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases at $350,000 but allows up to $1 million in cases with multiple victims, such as injuries to a mother and baby during a delivery, and injuries considered catastrophic.
Ban on Credit Scoring
“Headline grabbing proposals unveiled at press conferences during an election year is commonplace. … What is not common is the introduction of dangerous proposals that will increase insurance rates and ultimately harm Michigan’s already vulnerable economy.”
—Joe Thesing, National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) comments on introduction of a proposal to ban the use of credit scoring in rating and underwriting. NAMIC recently announced that it opposes legislation to ban the use of credit-based insurance scoring in Michigan. Thesing argued that passage of this bill would send a clear message to perspective businesses that economic growth and job creation is not a real priority to Michigan policymakers. Placing more severe restrictions on insurers and banning credit-based insurance scoring for auto and homeowners’ policies will have two results: higher prices and less availability, he said. The Washington, D.C.-based the American Insurance Association (AIA) also expressed concern over HB 4412, which would ban the use of credit.
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