# Calling all auto insurance professionals. Single payer Medicare for All and auto insurance **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 24, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464 "2015-11-24T19:23:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/1 "2015-11-24T19:23:21Z")
How much of what we pay for personal liability in our auto insurance policy is for costs for medical care? Wouldn’t we expect reductions in insurance premiums under the proposed single payer Medicare for All system? ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/2 "2015-11-24T21:10:52Z")
As I understand it, the way it works in Canada is that the auto insurance companies pay a flat (but substantial) amount of money to the provincial health insurance companies to cover the costs of treatment of accident victims. So those costs still get passed on to drivers. The only real difference is that there’s less of a need for high liability limits, although separate bodily injury coverage still exists because it covers stuff like lost wages and other things not covered by the provincial health insurance. I think in general, minimum coverage car insurance is more expensive up there but it covers more, and it hugely varies from province to province. Some provinces also have single payer no-fault auto insurance, which of course makes direct comparisons pretty difficult! ---
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/3 "2015-11-24T21:22:15Z")
That’s interesting. Canada still keeps the auto insurance companies in the loop. Lobbying and bribes, I guess. The single payer entity could just pay the medical providers directly. I am told that single payer would cut costs at least 25%. Canada spends 11% of GDP for medical care vs 17+% in the US ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/4 "2015-11-24T21:30:06Z")
> [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](#): > > How much of what we pay for personal liability in our auto insurance policy is for costs for medical care? It depends on your jurisdiction, but you can actually figure this out for yourself; if you design a policy on Progressive’s website, it will show you how much each incremental change in coverage limits of each type adds to your policy cost. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/5 "2015-11-24T21:35:06Z")
> [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](#): > > That’s interesting. Canada still keeps the auto insurance companies in the loop. Lobbying and bribes, I guess. The single payer entity could just pay the medical providers directly. I am told that single payer would cut costs at least 25%. Canada spends 11% of GDP for medical care vs 17+% in the US I don’t really see what you’re getting at here. The single payer provincial health insurance still pays all the medical bills from auto wrecks, it’s just that the auto insurers pay a flat fee back to the province to offset those bills. That’s true even in provinces that don’t have private auto insurance; the single province-run auto insurance company pays a flat fee to the single province-run health insurance company. In the greater scheme of things, what it really does in practice is make people who drive cars pay a little bit extra into the UHC scheme to pay for the healthcare costs of auto accidents. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/6 "2015-11-25T03:25:01Z")
I’m not aware of these payments from Canadian insurance companies to the Medicare system. Could you provide a cite? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/7 "2015-11-25T07:06:49Z")
I’ve just taken a quick boo at [The Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act](http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/English/Statutes/Statutes/S29.pdf) and [The Automobile Accident Insurance Act](http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/English/Statutes/Statutes/A35.pdf)and I’ve not been able to find any mention of these payments. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/8 "2015-11-25T14:17:12Z")
I thought I was your boo. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/9 "2015-11-28T01:24:26Z")
You’re my southern law-bro! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-auto-insurance-professionals-single-payer-medicare-for-all-and-auto-insurance/738464/10 "2015-11-30T18:33:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I’m not aware of these payments from Canadian insurance companies to the Medicare system. Could you provide a cite? I’ve seen them mostly referred to as “healthcare levies” but looking for cites it does appear I was wrong about them being in every province. (FWIW here’s a mention of one in the Ontario Insurance Act: [https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-i8/latest/#sec14.1subsec1](https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/stat/rso-1990-c-i8/latest/#sec14.1subsec1)) As I’m understanding it, traditionally the provincial health care systems have directly recovered the costs of medical treatments from automobile insurers on a case-by-case basis. Some provinces apparently still do it that way, but others have replaced that with a straight per-car fee which is designed to save all the administrative and legal hassles of subrogating each and every case. I’m not really seeing an authoritative cite that says which provinces do it which way, though, or how exactly it works in the single payer auto insurance provinces. Here’s a PDF report from Ontario that seems to touch on some of the issues: [http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports\_en/en05/313en05.pdf](http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports_en/en05/313en05.pdf) But I _believe_ my point to the OP is still essentially correct: that in that particular example of a single payer system, the medical costs of auto wrecks are still factored in to your car insurance premium one way or another.