DRUNK DRIVER MEDICAL EXCLUSION UPHELD

Gov. George Pataki vetoed a bill that would have required insurance carriers to pay the medical bills of people injured while driving drunk. Pataki’s action keeps in place the state’s “alcohol exclusion law,” enacted in the late 1940s in part to save insurance companies money.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners and Mothers Against Drunk Driving had argued that the current law discourages doctors from testing injured drivers for alcohol because insurance companies won’t have to pay for the treatment.

Pataki said he vetoed the bill because sponsors had not determined how many people and cases would be affected by a change, and because the bill’s language could be interpreted to require payment for procedures outside emergency room services.