The industries governing our lives couldn’t care less about the circumstances under which consumers are paying — or attempting to pay — their bills.
Whether you are laid off or getting ready to start another job, paying your bills late means you being swiftly reported to a credit agency, thus rendering you vulnerable to high premiums from the vulture-like insurance industry.
Already some employers are using credit scores to determine employment. Added to this conundrum is the specter of paying more money out of pocket for a decision one is likely to have not had anything to do with.
In this light where is the hope, of the common man?
Yet there are people who are opposed to government helping the average, hard-working and often struggling man. I am not promoting welfare, but in a tough economy where children are tearfully waking up everyday looking at their jobless parents for food, clothing and education, the government should come in as the machine that caters to the welfare of the people.
After this ruling, then what?
Will the insurance industry now go after consumers with less education and certain salary brackets before they can determine the kind of premium they will issue?
Since the high court has set a dangerous precedent, giving the insurance industry what it wants, we can now expect another round of outrageous and heartless demands. Because there will be a majority court that will give credence to such policies that are rooted in this nation’s history of gender and racial discrimination.
The Michigan Supreme Court must not only ensure that justice is done, it must also show its willingness to guarantee that those who appear before the court, no matter how heavy their pocket books, are treated fairly.
In this ruling that favors the insurance industry, ordinary people are the losers. Once again those with no voice or high powered lawyers and political connections have lost.
I asked Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Denise Langford Morris, the leading Democratic contender in the race for the Supreme Court, for her take on the ruling.
“We need fairness and balance on the Michigan Supreme Court. A bench that not only follows the law but understands litigation and possesses trial court experience,” Morris said.
She said the court suffers from a perception problem that it has become too partisan and entangled in battles with political overtones instead of interpreting the law.
That is exactly what the court has done and continues to do.
When President Barack Obama asked for justices with real life perspective on the U.S. Supreme Court, he was accused of seeking activist judges, a term that has become a rallying cry for those opposed to any notion of fairness.
What President Obama basically meant is that the men and women in black robes ought to come from diverse backgrounds with an informed perspective that helps them understand all who appear before them.
Those who interpret the law have a solemn obligation to uphold equal justice under the law. There is enough evidence that speaks to how some industries have long been gouging the very consumers they are supposed to be helping.
We cannot act as if we don’t know what is happening. Just because this ruling will not affect the pocketbooks of a few does not mean the rest of us must suffer.
The reason there is the Office of Financial and Ins
urance Services is to regulate the industry and ensure that consumers are protected from abuse and abitrary policies. The high priests of Michigan’s highest judiciary system must protect the law.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote in “The Common Law” that, “The law embodies the story of a nation’s development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.”
Watch “Center Stage With Bankole Thompson” every Saturday at 1 p.m. on WADL-TV 38 (Comcast Channel 4). This Saturday, July 17, the show will feature a special round-table with Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, Democratic strategist Lavonia Perryman and Lawrence Garcia of the Michigan Hispanic Bar Association speaking on diversity in the gubernatorial election. Also, students from Catherine Ferguson Academy for Young Women will talk about their upcoming trip to South Africa. E-mail bthompson@michronicle.com.
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