What My Car Accident Reveals About Dems’ Insurance Priorities

The next time Democrats regain political power in Washington, they will inevitably attempt to enact yet another major expansion of government health care. To support their efforts, they will, among other things, claim that uncompensated care to uninsured individuals raises insurance premiums for those Americans with health coverage. For that matter, they will make much the same arguments to undo the supposed “cuts” to Medicaid included in last year’s budget reconciliation measure.

But that line of argument falls apart in the face of evidence like this:

Uninsured and/or illegal alien motorists impose costs — including higher auto insurance premiums — on American citizens. Seeing as Democrats care so much about uncompensated care raising health insurance premiums, their plan to lower auto insurance premiums involves… what exactly?

Hit-and-Run Collision

Recently, I spent some time in New England on a late-summer road trip. As I was driving back to my hotel on Labor Day, traffic on a city street suddenly stopped ahead of me. I slammed on my brakes, came to a stop, and promptly heard a crunch. A motorcyclist driving behind me had failed to stop in time, plowing into the rear of my vehicle.

I put my car in park and opened the door to the vehicle to find a woman wearing shorts lying on the ground next to my car, apparently having been thrown from the motorcycle. A man, presumably the one driving the motorcycle, said, “We have to go” — and within seconds he sped off, fleeing the scene and leaving parts of his motorcycle strewn about the street behind him.

Ironically, motorists both ahead of and behind me did stop to make sure I was OK and unharmed and to express shock that the motorcyclist had hit me and driven off. With the motorcyclist having fled the scene, I went to the local police station to report the incident.

The officer appeared surprised when I told him I wanted to press charges if he could find the motorcyclist who hit me and ran. As it happened, I did snap a photo of the motorcyclist fleeing the scene, with the bike’s license plate visible. But the officer told me the plate was canceled and had been registered to another bike. The lack of a good facial photo, coupled with the canceled and/or stolen license plate, makes it unlikely that police will apprehend my assailant.

Imposing Costs

I don’t know for certain that the motorcyclist in question is living in the country illegally. But the fact that he didn’t want to stick around long enough to interact with me, let alone a police officer, indicated he had something to hide — and, at a minimum, almost certainly lacked insurance coverage.

I suffered no injury in the accident, and my car incurred only cosmetic damage. (When a small-ish motorcycle plows into a large-ish sedan, the sedan normally ends up winning, as it did in this case.) I was incredibly lucky that the primary costs I bore were the annoyance and hassle of having this fender bender while on vacation. (I also felt bad for the woman who fell off the bike because the man seemed more focused on fleeing the scene than assessing her condition.)

But, to use the argument the left makes about health insurance, we all end up paying for these types of incidents via uninsured motorist coverage. The officer told me what I already knew: If I made a claim on my insurance coverage for the (cosmetic) damage the motorcyclist caused through his negligence, my own premium would go up.

I told the officer I would press charges, notwithstanding the cost involved should I have to travel back for any prosecution, because of the costs these types of incidents impose on law-abiding citizens nationwide. I don’t believe anyone should be able to inflict damage due to his or her own negligence and do so with impunity.

As I said, I don’t know whether the individual who hit me is in this country illegally. But I do know that leaving the scene of an accident is a crime in Rhode Island (where the incident occurred), and in some circumstances can be classified as a felony. And if this particular individual is in fact an illegal alien, that would put paid to Democrats’ typical argument that their only “crime” is being in this country illegally.

I also know Democrats would do exactly nothing to stop this kind of situation from recurring in the future. The fact that they care so little about uncompensated auto insurance claims means I will take no lessons from them on universal coverage as a way to “solve” the problem of uncompensated health care.