Kamala’s dangerous statement about insurance companies
Thank goodness Kamala Harris wasn’t elected.
Here’s her statement on insurance companies and the LA fire:
Many insurance companies have canceled insurance for a lot of the families who have been affected and will be affected, which is only going to delay or place an added burden on their ability to recover.
I think that is an important point that must be raised, and hopefully there can be some way to address that issue, because these families — so many of them — otherwise will not have the resources to recover in any meaningful way, and many of them have lost everything.
Harris implies that the companies have canceled insurance because of the fire or during the fire, even though she doesn’t explicitly say it. What she leaves out is the fact that the policies were canceled some time ago and it had nothing to do with this fire and everything to do with California’s insurance rules that make it a loss to cover people in high-risk fire areas. This is a description of what has actually happened:
Even before this week’s wildfires hit, California was in the midst of an insurance crisis, with many residents unable to obtain homeowners insurance due to several carriers limiting their exposure in the state or pulling out completely in recent years because of heavy losses and the inability to adequately raise premiums or assess risk due to California’s regulations.
Insurance companies are businesses. If the risk is high they must raise rates. If the state forbids them to raise rates enough to cover losses, the companies won’t be doing business there.
More:
The state’s largest homeowners insurance carrier, State Farm, announced in March of last year that it would not renew some 72,000 home and apartment policies in the summer. The company cited inflation, regulatory costs and increasing risk of catastrophes for its decision and had previously stopped accepting new applications in the state.
Several other leading insurers, including All State, Farmers and USAA, have also in recent years curbed new policy applications in California as part of an effort to limit their exposure to policies that carry what they see as undue risk given what the state’s regulators have allowed them to charge policyholders. Similar reasons of escalating risk, high repair costs and rising reinsurance premiums have been cited in those decisions.
While it is illegal for insurance companies to cancel policies before they expire in California, many homeowners whose policies were not renewed have struggled to obtain or afford coverage, as the number of carriers in the state continues to shrink.
California doesn’t employ adequate fire prevention or mitigation measures despite the high risk there, and then it makes it so that insurance companies can’t afford to do business there because premium rates are capped in an artificial and unrealistic manner.
And why do I call Harris’ remarks dangerous? I think the answer is obvious after the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the fact that so many people justified his killing.
Yes, sadly, I think insurance executives need to be getting security coverage and taking photos and lists of names offline.
The insurance situation is a huge problem. The companies have to charge enough to be able to pay claims and still stay in business.
Even here in wet and cool WA state, my insurer has raised my premiums to double what they were two years ago. A lot of that is inflation, but some is concern about increased fire dangers. My insurer has sent me information about how to make my property more fire resistant. That’s never happened before.
The state insurance commission should understand how much rebuilding costs have increased, how insurance companies have a right to review the fire mitigation and suppression policies of a state, and charge premiums accordingly. If the insurance commission won’t allow premium increases, what can companies do but refuse to write coverage in that state.
Trying to blame them, as Kamala Harris has done, shows she has no grasp of the reality of free enterprise. And is dangerous in today’s woke culture.
I’ve realized lately, based on mostly casual comments from leftists, acquaintances and non-acquaintances, that somewhere in their not-quite-conscious assumptions is that they don’t really acknowledge the existence of “business” in the sense that others use it: the provision of some product or service in exchange for some financial return. To them the provision is the essential and mandatory part; the return is optional.
So if someone is in what he thinks is the business of making and selling candles, the deep unarticulated assumption of the leftist is that the person is in the “business” of providing candles. If he gets paid for them, that’s good. But if he doesn’t, he still has an obligation to provide them. At the back of this maybe is the inheritance of Christian religious orders which do charitable works without expectation of payment or any other return. They’re following what they understand to be the will of God, not their own economic interest.
So: the function of an insurance provider is to provide insurance. And if the provider refuses, for whatever reason, to provide, it’s committing an immoral act, which in the leftist view should also be an illegal one.
You can easily see how this deep assumption leads to the desire for total control of economic activity: “the people” aka the state will decide what’s produced, how the producer is supported, and how and to whom the product is distributed. It’s the only way to make production and distribution ethical. Everybody is to follow the selfless ideal of the monk, and the will of “the people” takes the place of the will of God.
(Sure, I know the monks et. al. were often far from selfless, but that was the principle.)
I am not an Ayn Rand fan (to put it mildly) but she was pretty much right in her assessment of this mentality and its practical results.
Mac, you’re right. Years ago I had a conversation with a leftist California relative about Obamacare, when it was being debated in Congress. She said that she didn’t think health insurance companies should be “allowed” to make a profit on such an essential service.
J.J.
Yes, it is. Part of the problem is that there are so many Democrat politicians who have been government employees in “public service” for all or nearly all their working lives, so have no experience of the constraints under which businesses operate. Consider Reagan, Bush 1+2, McCain, Romney, Trump: lot of private enterprise–and entrepreneurial– experience. Consider Clinton 1+2, Dukakis, Kerry, Obama, Harris: little to no private enterprise experience, let alone entrepreneurial experience.
George McGovern bought a motel after he left politics. He said he found out the hard way how little he and other well-intentioned politicians knew about the realities of running a business.
In addition to insurance, Kamala (Qué mala–So bad) made a similar economically illiterate statement about “price gouging” in grocery stores. Yup, that 2% profit margin for grocery stores indicates a whole lot of price gouging. 🙂
Yesterday, at his substack, Arnold Kling posted an essay entitled “Tough Love for California : the state will need a bailout. It should come with conditions.”
link: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/tough-love-for-california
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Here are a few thoughts from Kling:
“Private insurance companies have limited obligations to cover losses. Instead, they are reinsured by a state fund. But the state reinsurance fund has less than $1 billion, and the cost of damages from the fires is going to be on the order of $50 billion or more.
The state is going to need a Federal bailout. If it were up to me, that bailout would come with conditions.
In order to receive a bailout, I would require that California pass legislation ceding sovereignty to the Federal government to manage three areas: public employees; water; and forests.”
_____________________________________________
For the rest of his post, Kling expands on these ideas, and it sounded pretty good to me. Unfortunately, some of his commenters were quick to point out that a bad precedent would be set by demanding tough love conditions from California. For example, the next time that the Democrats take power, they could demand that Texas’s legislators commit to open borders and sanctuary cities, before receiving Federal funds to recover from a bad hurricane.
Of course, it’s also true that Federal funds often come with conditions. How can new conditions be set for California, but avoided for Texas and Florida? Sadly, the law of unintended consequences hasn’t been repealed.
It’s not going to be long before California just socializes insurance completely, and then it will turn from something that makes money to something that loses money, with every consideration regarding deductibles, reserves, rates, etc. subordinated to political ends. But we will definitely see more lesbians in charge; they’ll have that going for them. Which is nice.
And if they think insurance is too expensive now, wait till they find out how much it costs them once it’s “free”.
All I know is that my rates here in CO will go up because of the fires in CO, and the hurricanes.
@ Kate > “She said that she didn’t think health insurance companies should be “allowed” to make a profit on such an essential service.”
I still have a vivid recollection of seeing a video of a man with similar beliefs getting his new insurance premium bill after Obamacare was implemented. His dumbfounded (and I mean that literally) response was, “I wanted people to have free insurance, but I didn’t think I would have to pay for it!”
@ Cornflour > “Of course, it’s also true that Federal funds often come with conditions. How can new conditions be set for California, but avoided for Texas and Florida?”
Arnold Kling makes a good suggestion about putting conditions on aid to CA, and is rightly worried about Democrats doing something analogous (in their eyes) to Texas or Florida, but IMO that is mostly a problem if the President is acting on his own, with an EO or by stretching the interpretation of some existing statute.
Of course, the Democrats would do the same regardless of what any Republican president does, so the problem exists even if Trump doesn’t put any conditions on aid for this round of fires.
So I would tell President Trump “go for it” and see what happens.
In fact, we know what happened last time he tried to put some brakes on California’s run-away train:
https://nypost.com/2025/01/08/us-news/trump-says-gov-gavin-newscum-chose-to-save-an-endangered-fish-instead-of-sending-water-to-southern-california-to-fight-apocalyptic-wildfires/
Fact-check: We know the Democrats will deny anything on whatever triviality they can, even if it's purely a matter of unofficial labels.
However, whatever conditions President Trump puts on aid, if any, will be litigated and dismissed by the reliably leftist judges in state and federal courts.
Congress would have to legislate (hopefully in a form resistant to judicial voiding) some kind of general conditions that would require any aid to any state be dependent on taking steps to mitigate potential disasters in the future, which would not be an onerous condition for Texas and Florida (they already do a pretty good job) and would shut out irrelevant requirements about the borders and sanctuary cities (or whatever pet project the Dems are stalking at that time).
Good luck with that.
Even if President or Congress succeeds, Kling's commenter has a jaundiced view, file under "cure worse than disease" –
Based on precedent in the other natural disasters, I think my recommendations would be to repeal any federal laws & regulations that stand in the way of good management (I’m sure there are plenty in the EPA and other agencies); void or at least waive any prohibitions against “good Samaritans” like the Cajun Navy and the Amish carpenters’ tiny houses, and eliminate the entire climate change agenda.
We can probably think of more.
*by Jared Gans – 09/13/24
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4879150-trump-threatens-wildfire-aid-newsom-smelt/
My insurance rates have gone up. We had a tornado two years ago that did a LOT of damage. The city where I live is growing very, very fast and too many people are not careful when they drive. Then there’s inflation and it all adds up to high premiums.
AesopFan, regarding conditions on aid, I heard Glenn Beck speak on the subject of the California fires and he gave an example from how his church, the church of Latter Day Saints, manages aid. I did not know this about LDS and I think it is very wise.
Parishioners who need help go to a representative of the church. All parishioners are encouraged to tithe to the church and a council of leaders controls what is done with funds. If a parishioner needs financial assistance it is typically granted for any need that is reasonable, but the parishioner is required to have regular meetings with the church representatives and he or she is often required to attend classes to assist on helping them learn or change their behavior so they do not need assistance in the future.
Glenn gave an example when a parishioner came to him directly with a request for $1,000. Glenn is wealthy, and could have gave him the money, but Glenn went to a Bishop and mentioned the request to the Bishop. The Bishop said, “Glenn, that parishioner has come to the council before with requests. If you give him that money now it will likely harm him and delay his ability to make changes in his life.”
Sounds like a great system to me. A personal aspect is missing from government aid, at least how it’s done in the U.S.
I usually write my comments, hit submit, and then go back and edit them, but for some reason the edit button did not pop up.
AesopFan, I apologize for the myriad of errors in that comment. 🙂
Rufus, I do appreciate learning of Glenn Beck’s thoughts & experience.
Sounds like good parenting — aiding if needed, but demanding lessons (re: classes) and improvements.
I’d like to see laws passed to ensure politicians are open to some personal consequences for their “failure of duties”, aside from possible loss of re-election.
That the taxpayers are often the slush fund for leaders’ mistakes may make some people vote smarter. But that isn’t enough, we keep proving.
Marlene, I once practiced medicine for a few years in Mesa, AZ, a town founded by Mormons, until I was seduced Eastward. And while there I never met an unhappy member of that Church.No smoking, no alcohol was part of their code.
Marlene– The idea of the burden placed on taxpayers by a failed political leader causing the taxpayer to become a smarter voter is valid, but (you knew there would be a “but”) people who pay no taxes (directly) also vote. The “smarter” taxpayer-voters only hold majorities in mostly rural counties in CA.
Removal from office should be much swifter than it is now, but unavailable for petty personal issues. I am not holding my breath.
@Cicero:And while there I never met an unhappy member of that Church.
I spent a number of my years in majority-Mormon settings. Vicious gossip and expectations of conformity resulted in quite a few unhappy members that I knew. In addition when they reach a critical mass in a non-Mormon organization they tend to take it over–could be a company, local government, school district–and whatever the chart says on paper, the real chart depends on proximity to the bishop, with non-Mormons shut out from any real influence.
Not problems limited to Mormons, of course, and arguably better than drug problems and teen pregnancies.
Just make sure you always take at least two when you go fishing: if you take one Mormon he will drink all your beer.
Niketas-
Mormon conformity is part of LDS’ strength, and from what I know, is not hard to live by, now that multiple wives per one husband has been declared as not of the LDS faith, though that helped settle Utah!
Heterodoxy does not, in my view, provide that strength. We see that with secular materialism winning the day, every day, corrupting the USA. There is no moral code as an inherent part of secular materialism. But all Christian religions and sects have that code in one form of another. Pastors are tasked with leading the sheep!
You wrote,”Not problems limited to Mormons, of course, and arguably better than drug problems and teen pregnancies.”
Surely you did not mean “arguably”!
I was startled to find out that Maxine Waters is still alive and still in office and blaming somebody or other for everything. I forget who or what she blamed. The shock was that she’s still around.
@Cicero:Surely you did not mean “arguably”!
I recognize that other people have different values from mine, and so said “arguably”. By my values vicious gossip and stifling conformity are less bad than teen pregnancies and drug abuse, certainly, but as you point out, we live in a country where there’s wide variety in values, and people argue about them. There are people who think teen pregnancies and drug abuse are less bad than accepting the LDS theology of the Trinity, and they have very strong arguments.
As for me I cannot accept their religion no matter how well they behave, or how much better a country we’d be if we all believed as they do. Doesn’t mean I can’t be pleasant to them, or give them credit for what they do well. It’s for God to decide what theology counts for.
In small numbers they are excellent neighbors, when they form a strong majority I find them a little overbearing. I feel the same about people who agree with me too much, I prefer living in a plurality of opinions.
Cicero:
“There is no moral code as an inherent part of secular materialism. But all Christian religions and sects have that code in one form or another.”
And yet many nonbelievers can claim “you don’t need to believe in God to be moral”. My attempts to understand how very intelligent people can also have devout faith in one religion or another lead me to propose we have an evolved psychology with a spectrum for desires for transcendence. This is comparable to the range of capabilities we exhibit in many areas of life. But we also have many cases of people moving back and forth between the believer and the nonbeliever groups. Not sure how or why that is the case.
I also agree with Tom Holland, Larry Siedentop, and many others that the Judeo-Christian culture is perhaps the only one that truly found or discovered the concept of universal human dignity and that “all men are created equal”.
Niketas:
“… we live in a country where there’s wide variety in values, and people argue about them. … I feel the same about people who agree with me too much, I prefer living in a plurality of opinions.”
Well, then I believe you are in the right place commenting on this (well managed and generally civil) blog … even though I usually do agree with you.
@ Rufus > “I apologize for the myriad of errors in that comment.”
Your paraphrasing (I assume) of Beck’s comments is pretty close to correct.
Technically, the funds that all bishops have available to help ward members (a ward is very much like a parish) come from fast offerings, not tithing. They are two separate funding accounts, and donations are directed to each one by the donor.
Members are asked to fast on the first Sunday of each month (there is some flexibility in the schedule) and donate what they would have spent on the two missed meals to the Fast Offering fund. The custom evolved from pioneer days when the members would literally bring eggs, milk, meat, chickens, grain, and other produce to the Bishop’s Storehouse (a physical warehouse), and the goods would then be distributed to those in need.
Now we just give cash. 🙂
However, large cities do have a Bishop’s Storehouse that is provisioned like a scaled down basics-only grocery store, and a bishop can issue a “purchase order” that allows members to obtain the needed commodities. They are staffed by missionaries and local volunteers.
Most bishops encourage members to donate amounts based on the value of a luxury brunch at an expensive restaurant, rather than the usual frugal grocery bills of value-conscious Mormon moms (such as myself), but it’s totally up to the individual.
(Parenthetical note: that sounds like the socialist mantra “from each according to his ability, to each according to this need” but there is no compulsion involved, and a longer discussion is not relevant here.)
Distribution is closely supervised by the local leadership, primarily the bishop and the Relief Society President (leader of the women’s organization, who is often tasked with actually delivering the aid — ask me how I know), and is always a very private matter unless there is good reason otherwise (as in Beck’s example). That’s simplified, of course.
The LDS Church also sponsors a lot of local, regional, and on-line classes for financial management, budgeting, homemaking, parenting, marriage & family, education, employment, and I’ve probably forgotten some.
Large cities have buildings and staff for some of those (usually in the same location as the Storehouse), and even psychiatric counseling. Most of that is paid for through tithing funds, IIRC.
There is also a separate fund for donations to Humanitarian Relief, which is used to provide resources for emergencies world-wide, and the LDS organization is very efficient at delivering that as well.
https://philanthropies.churchofjesuschrist.org/humanitarian-services
Long answer; but it’s not a well-known part of the ecclesiastical machinery.
Other churches have other methods for delivering charitable aid, and most of them do a lot of unpublicized good works, some of which I am aware of locally because of friends, and also through formal participation in ecumenical projects.
(End of public-service ad – we now return you to your regularly scheduled comment thread)
@ Cicero > “I never met an unhappy member of that Church. No smoking, no alcohol was part of their code.”
I know a lot of unhappy members, but part of that is because my callings over 50 years required me to be familiar with the “back stage” lives of a lot of people (I’ve been a Relief Society president in three different states, and AesopSpouse has been a bishop — not at the same time, and he didn’t talk to me about private problems unless I was needed to help out).
As with any other large demographic, the more people you know the more likely you will see a normal distribution of any characteristic, and Mormons are no exception.
And not all members of the LDS Church are living up to the values and standards of the organization, which is also true of any religious community.
In my experience, happiness usually tracks with activity and “good behavior” (there are always exceptions).
Niketas is right about some of them drinking all your beer, but that’s probably a statistical anomaly.
“Vicious gossip and expectations of conformity resulted in quite a few unhappy members that I knew.”
Those are serious problems, which operate independently but sometimes are correlated, and we don’t expect to see them end until the Millennium.
They are individual failings and not doctrinal imperatives, and (as Cicero noted), conformity can be a positive thing depending on whether the focus is principles (moral values) or practices (local customs). Leaders get constant reminders from Salt Lake to remember the difference.
“In addition when they reach a critical mass in a non-Mormon organization they tend to take it over”
That is likely to be true, for two reasons that I can think of this late at night:
(1) Any identity group (it’s a useful phrase, even though it has negative connotations these days) which becomes a numerical majority will “take over” an organization because it forms (surprise!) a majority, and thus is naturally more likely to have people among the leadership and active members.
(2) The LDS church is a lay-ministry organization: no one has to have a divinity degree, or even a college degree, to be a leader, and no one is paid to serve in local wards and stakes (full-time church leaders are another digression). Over the years, this has led to a lot of training procedures, and even classes, to “oil the machinery” — much of them developed by the same people who do management training for businesses, governments, NGOs, etc. Even the youth (12-18) begin holding leadership and management positions in their own age-groups.
So, even if not part of a numerical majority, people trained to lead small groups often end up leading large ones.
I can’t speak to people tying their behavior to the local bishop’s wishes because I have never experienced it. I suspect it’s more likely to happen in Utah than anywhere else, and yes, we all know Stories about that sort of thing, but (again) that’s personal not doctrinal. FWIW, I’ve heard the same thing about: Catholic priests in Irish communities; Baptist preachers in the Bible Belt (where I grew up as a card-carrying Baptist); evangelical mega-church leaders just about anywhere; and you name it.
People don’t cease to be people just because they join a church, more’s the pity.
@ R2L > “I believe you are in the right place commenting on this (well managed and generally civil) blog”
Can we get an “amen” here?
Amen
AesopFan:
Those beer drinking dudes were called “Jack Mormons” when I worked in Utah 50 years ago. FWIW.
We lost our State Farm fire insurance late last year, and ended up on the FAIR plan, a state plan that (at least in part) charges insurance companies that still operate in the state for some of the coverage.
@ om – That’s a very familiar term, although I’ve never heard any explanation of why “Jack” got attached to the concept. Possibly through connections to fairy tales and nursery rhymes such as Jack’s Beanstalk, Jack Spratt, and others.
But that just pushes the question further back, and while this is a scholarly history of the label, it doesn’t answer that particular query.
https://www.mrm.org/what-is-jack-mormon
This post is less scholarly but adds a connection to the then-contemporary term “Jack Masons” — still with no clue who Jack is. However, since both idioms have been used as derogatory terms in the past, it might be a reference to the “knave” or “jack” in a deck of cards (I borrowed that idea from someone else).
https://ldsquotations.com/blog/jack-mormon/
AesopSpouse’s grandparents on the LDS side could be called Jack Mormons (although I never heard it done), as Grandpa liked his cigars and occasional glass of wine, and Grandma — well, when a school-friend of mine in Texas hosted a pre-wedding luncheon for the women of the two families, everyone except myself and AS’s mother and sisters declined the customary southern iced tea. When the hostess came to Grandma, who accepted a glass, she looked confused, and Grandma reassured her, with a twinkle in her eye, “I’m a Mormon too, dear, but I’m not a very good one.”
Of course, they were both wonderful people, and great examples to all of the family, but I will never forget that gentle, humorous reply.