Florida's Fire Chiefs want PIP to stick around

The Buzz reports that the Florida Association of Fire Chiefs has issued a statement (.pdf document) urging Governor Crist to call the legislature back for a special session on PIP. Fire/EMS companies stand to lose millions in un-reimbursed EMS calls if PIP sunsets on October 1st, so it's not surprising that they want it to stay on the books.

As more and more folks in the health-care field wake up to the fact that the sunset of PIP will cost them money, you can bet that the drum beat for a special session will continue to get louder. It remains to be seen how the insurance industry plays their cards to oppose this growing call for a special session. Count on them starting a big public-relations push soon about how the death of PIP will lower insurance costs.

A Democrat state legislator in NW Florida? No way...

An interesting article in the St. Petersburg Times discusses the possibility of a Democrat actually being elected to a seat in the state legislature in a panhandle district. While most would say this is a fantasy, the candidate is Sheriff John "Johnny Mac" McDaniel, who has been sheriff of Jackson County for nearly thirty years.

A tough-talking, law and order Democrat? Yeah, I guess they do still exist...

Jeeezus H...

Arizona legislators admit they didn't know what they were voting on.

I guess I'm naive, but I would hope that a legislator would at least know what the bill is that he's voting on. These dopes in Arizona voted in favor of a bill outlawing the use of the names of dead servicemen on commercial products, and when questioned about it later had such wonderful explanations as:

"a senior moment"
"these things slip past us all the time"
"if I had been paying better attention, I would have voted no"

As stated in the article, "Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, conceded that she wasn't paying attention and was totally unaware of the contents of the bill on which she voted at least twice . . ."

BTW, Gov. Crist recently signed a similar bill into law in Florida. I wonder how many of our legislators in Tallahassee were asleep at the switch on this bill?

It's PIP-tastic!

The Buzz has an interesting entry about a little detail of the PIP sunset that people had largely overlooked. PIP itself is due to sunset on October 1st, but the real deadline is 45 days earlier, when insurance companies start sending out their insurance renewal premiums, which may be cheaper due to the lack of PIP coverage. The carriers can blow the horn about cheaper insurance rates at that time, making it more difficult, politically, for state legislators to go back and reinstate PIP in a special session some time in September. The insurance lobby has definitely got the legislature over a barrel on this one...

PIP-awareness is growing

I wrote about the sunsetting of PIP a few days ago. Chris Chiari, a Democratic candidate for Florida House district 91, has an interesting podcast (.mp3 format) about this issue on his website. I like that he takes a stand on the issue, even though he won't be in the legislature (if he wins) in time to prevent PIP from going away.

This issue is one that largely slipped under the radar of Florida voters last fall, but will be a growing issue over the next few months as more people become aware that PIP is going away.