With all the problems that are going on in this country, one problem seems to be going overlooked: the car insurance problem. Not enough people have car insurance, and they are paying too much for it.

Now because we have seen the US government succeed admirably with the private health insurance model, I propose the following regulations be made to the automotive and automotive insurance industries to assure a greater level of quality at a lower cost so we can have peace of mind on the road:

1) Employer coverage: Offer substantial tax credits to companies for providing car insurance to their employees. People don't have thirty minutes out of their busy day to compare competitive rate quotes, and it should be the employer's duty to provide these things so that ordinary civilians don't have to go looking for car insurance "on the streets." The company will pay the same amount of premium for each employee, regardless of whether they drive a beat up VW bug or a BMW 7 series, and regardless of driving history. This will keep costs down, and ensure that the people are getting better rates.

2) Mandatory coverage provisions: As it stands, car insurance companies can simply cover you however the heck you want. Someone could be driving around with nothing more than liability coverage...but what if they get into an accident? They won't be covered! Collision insurance should be mandatory. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Let's look at the other things people need for their cars: oil changes, gas, stereos, rims...ALL of these things should be covered by one's insurance provider. So we'll make the insurance companies pay for your tank and everything that goes into your car. After all, what good is a car if you can't fill it up?

3) Dealer malpractice: What? You have to take that used El Camino you bought in for a tune-up already? You should be able to sue the living crap out of the guy who sold it to you. Car dealers are evil, predatory beings who need to be kept in check by paying six figures every year for malpractice insurance, and we need a tort system that will ensure that they pay dearly for their crimes. (Some say this will result in them charging substantially more for the automobiles they're selling, but that's a load of conservative hogwash.)

4) No driver left behind: No insurer or dealer should ever be allowed to turn a customer away just because his credit is bad and he has no money. Everyone has the right to automobile ownership. All insurance agencies and auto dealerships will be required by law to provide their service to anyone who walks in the door; regardless of whether they can pay or not.


There! Now the auto insurance industry will run a little more smoothly after taking a lesson from our good ol' American health care system. And remember, if somehow any of these regulations somehow end up increasing prices and restricting quality and availability, we can simply elect a Democrat to subsidize our insurance premiums with our own tax dollars. It's foolproof. Now let's all go buy some new rims!

you're just mad because free market health care in this country is a total failure

well said.

Doesn't make cars cheaper, people won't buy new ones to help the auto industry
This will increase the cost of insurance, by a lot.
No its the truth sir. Costs go up, prices follow, it aint rocket science.
Why the **** would be you forced to sell a car to someone who can't afford it? Do you not see the housing problems we have?

WTF The American health care system runs smoothly??????

The most obvious point you've missed here that would greatly help the US auto industry are the unions. If you want to lower the cost of production, lowering the cost of production would help the most. This could be pretty simply done by enabling right to work throughout the US.

"If you want to lower the cost of production, lowering the cost of production would help the most." - ikestoys


well said my friend, well said

Insurance companies should definately pay for routine tune-ups because that cost is significantly less then waiting until your cars breaks down and you need to get it fixed. After all, insurance isn't there to cover the very large expenses but to make sure everything related to a service is free.

Ok, this has to be a level.

Gee, you think?

Detroit is being killed because of the blood sucking unions.

Crappy management, crappy products aren't helping.

quality gap is nonexistent, most cars have very similar in features. US companies pay about 25 dollars more an hour than foreign counterparts.

Edit to add: that is a 50% difference btw

American quality is fine. GM is killing it overseas (if they shut down US operations tomorrow, they are profitable). Labor/benefit costs are crushing them. The Malibu gets 32 miles a gallon, yet they get ripped for "not building fuel efficient cars," not to mention that the Volt will be the first electric car on the US market.

If GM can weather the next 2-3 years, they will be fine.

Oh, and they sold 51% of GMAC for a huge premium before the housing bubble burst. That was pretty smart imo.

Ditto Ford. It also helps that they managed to slaughter the unions in the last round of negotiations. However, those contracts haven't gone into effect yet.

I'm going to install photoshop later just so I can get that guy out of the background and make that gif better.

How do you do that? What goes in the guys place?

No one is forcing the automakers to use union labor.

You have no idea what you are talking about, at least with respect to the Big 3.

oh do tell

Two things you could do here. One, using layers, you just fix the background through the whole loop so you don't see any movement back there.

Two, wipe the guy out using the clone and heal tools.

Just having feature parity is not enough to eliminate crappiness.

And?

American quality is absolute crap; just look at the consumer reports for any given model. It's possible they have improved in the last few years, since reliability data isn't there for those years, but to think that U.S. quality is anywhere near Japanese is ludicrous. Even though most Japanese cars have been manufactured in the U.S. for awhile, the strictly American companies are just designed or built terribly. You can draw your own conclusions.

Yes they are. Many states, including Michigan, require workers to join a union in order to work at a factory.

In response to this, why do you think manufacturing jobs are fleeing out of Michigan and into right to work states? However, it isn't a process you can do overnight and frankly, the Big 3 already have so much invested in plants in MI already they can't move out with any type of speed.

So there's no quality gap and feature parity, but they are still crappiness? Hmm.

If it costs 50% more in labor costs than their competitors.... you know the answer to this.