Survivors of catastrophic car crashes and their supporters again lined the corridors of the state Capitol building Thursday, continuing their years-long fight to amend the state's 2019 auto no-fault law.
The event was held after Democratic House Speaker Joe Tate pulled Senate-passed auto no-fault bills from consideration in the House Insurance and Financial Services Committee.
Tate's move echoed a similar decision by the former house speaker, Republican Jason Wentworth, who refused to allow a hearing on a set of no-fault bills that also focused on the reimbursement problem.
The 2019 no-fault law slashed payments for long term care for car crash injuries, and survivors say that care is now difficult to impossible to find. The Senate bills would restore reasonable rates for the care.
Advocate Maureen Howell said she's deeply disappointed in Tate's decision. She said Republicans refused to amend the law before the last election, and now Democrats are doing the same.
"We just keep getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back for other issues," she said. "And now we're hearing the speaker wants to wait until the fall in lame duck," she said, referring to the period between the next elections and the newly elected legislators taking office. "That is dangerous. We need help and we need it now," said Howell.
Advocates say more than a dozen people have died so far after losing care under the 2019 law.
But House Speaker Joe Tate said his focus right now is the budget.
"I know that there have been a lot of hearings around that issue," he said of the no fault bills. "And that's something that we're going to continue to look at as we go along the rest of this year."
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