If You’ve Been Injured In A Car Wreck in Nashville, Your Right to a Fair Recovery MUST Be Protected!
Should You Bear The Burden for Other People’s Negligence?
Big Business and Insurance Companies in Tennessee sure think so! Picture this scenario: You’re driving along when suddenly some careless driver runs into you and you are seriously injured. But they are let off the hook from being responsible for your injuries because YOU have health insurance. Now, if that driver had hit another person who did not have health insurance, the at-fault driver would be responsible for their injuries. Your insurance has to cover your injuries and the careless person who caused those injuries (and their insurance company) are only responsible for your co-pays and deductibles. Is that punishing bad behavior and rewarding the good? Hardly, it’s doing the exact opposite. But, if big business and insurance companies have their way in Tennessee, that’s exactly what will happen.
Thanks to the Collateral Source Rule (CSR), we are currently protected from this crazy scenario. The CSR says a Defendant who has harmed someone does not get off the hook because someone helps to cover the victim’s damages. Here is a short example to demonstrate the current rule as opposed to what the law would be if these special interest groups get their way in Tennessee: John and Jane are hit by a careless driver and are seriously hurt and each needs $100,000 in medical care. Jane has health insurance which pays for most of her care after the accident, except for the co-pays and deductibles that totaled $2,000 out of Jane’s pocket. John, on the other hand, does not have health insurance.
Under the current CSR, the careless driver and their insurance company will be responsible for the full cost of the medical care for harm caused to John and Jane, which is $100,000 each. If big business gets their way, this is how the example would play out. Because John did not have health insurance, the negligent driver and their insurance company would be responsible for 100% of John’s medical bills, but not so for poor Jane. Because she had health insurance, she can only recover the actual amount she paid out of her own pocket from the careless driver who injured her, which in this case is $2,000. The at-fault driver’s insurance company gets a 98% discount because Jane, the victim, had insurance. Jane’s own insurance company will have to be responsible for her medical bills and this cost will be passed onto all of us through higher healthcare premiums, so without the Collateral Source Rule, we all would end up paying for the negligence of careless drivers! And this isn’t the only negative impact for us without the protection of the CSR.
In accidents that result in serious injury, often the pain (mental and physical) and suffering, and sometimes permanent loss of enjoyment of life are more important than medical bills. Juries will frequently use the amount of medical bills incurred as an underlying number in calculating these factors. In their minds, the larger the medical bills, the worse the injuries and the greater the amount of pain and suffering that can be awarded. If a Jury used this common line of thought in figuring the recoveries for our Jane and John, the difference in their compensation would be drastically different if the Collateral Source Rule were not in place. In our example, the Jury decides to award our victims 4 times the amount of their medical bills in pain and suffering. John’s recovery (with no health insurance) would be figured at 4 x $100,000 (his medical bills) to equal $400,000. Poor responsible Jane, with the same serious injuries, would receive an award figured at 4 x $2,000 (her out of pocket expenses) for a total of $8,000. That’s $392,000 the big insurance company gets to keep in their pockets and $392,000 that will be passed on to the public.
The Collateral Source Rule is a very important protection for responsible citizens, both those who are injured due to another’s carelessness and those who just have to foot the bill for the ever increasing profit margin of big business. There are even more ways the CSR protects us, but I don’t have enough room to share all of them with you in this article. Suffice it to say that it makes sure victims are treated fairly and that the responsible parties are the ones who must pay for their harms and losses. Big business special interest groups, like insurance companies, want to change the rules in Tennessee so the burden of paying for negligent behavior is transferred from them to us.
Please urge your Legislator to protect this important safeguard for Tennesseans. Unfortunately, the Collateral Source Rule isn’t called the “ Keeping Big Insurance Companies out of Tennessean’s Pockets Rule”, because it would get more attention if it were. Special interest lobbyists will bank (literally) on people not understanding the importance of this safeguard so they can strip it away from us.
We are at the crossroads of right and wrong! – please stay vigilant and join us in preventing this from happening in Tennessee!