There's a very good op ed in today's Detroit News.  The Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. picks apart a proposed ballot issue planned for Michigan's November election.

They write:

The group [Fair and Affordable Insurance Rates (FAIR)] claims that [its proposal] would reduce the cost of insurance. However, it is more likely that if these measures are passed, rates throughout Michigan will rise and availability will diminish as insurers leave for other states where they are free to base their rates on the factors they know correlate to risk.

The author points to other states where similar proposals have been enacted as proof positive that the measures in the proposed ballot langauge won't do what the politicians claim.  Shocking, for an election year ploy, isn't it?

And then the D.C. experts write:

If reformers really want to reduce the cost of insurance for consumers in Michigan and they want people to pay fair rates, they must reduce the cost of writing auto insurance in Michigan. One way to do this is to allow consumers and insurance companies to choose the amount of insurance they want to buy.

Michigan is the only state in the nation that requires drivers to purchase personal injury insurance with unlimited medical coverage. This is one reason that the average claim in Michigan has risen 250 percent in the past decade.

Allowing insurers the freedom to offer the products they wish to consumers and to determine the premiums that they believe reflect the risk of certain drivers may not solve all of Michigan's auto insurance problems instantaneously, but increasing the controls on insurance companies will potentially drive insurers from the state, decrease the availability of insurance, and simply exacerbate the problems in Michigan's auto insurance market.

Sounds familiar and sounds like a good plan. ;)