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Three dissimilar candidates in the race for California Insurance Commissioner

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The California Insurance Commissioner and the agency he/she is charged with overseeing, the California Department of Insurance, are comparatively less glamorous than other components within the state’s bureaucracy, but none-the-less cast a formidable shadow as it ministers over the hundreds of insurance companies, and scores of consumers they serve.

The office itself was not part of the elective process until 1991. Previously, the Commissioner was merely another Governor-selected appointee. The current office holder, Democrat incumbent Dave Jones, is credited with saving consumers some $1.4 billion in insurance premiums through his regulation policies (primarily through the lessening of auto and home-owner rates), according to the Los Angeles Times. He has achieved this without resorting to abrasive legislation that might conceivably encourage insurance carriers to leave the state. Most importantly, he has contributed to the climate of diversity by encouraging major carriers to do business with smaller, minority-owned companies so that they can participate in this $135 billion industry. Among the methods adopted is the presentation of annual reports in which companies identify sub-contractors they do business with, and future plans to promote business opportunities.

His Republican opponent, State Senator Edward M. “Ted” Gaines, is an insurance company owner, and fifth generation resident in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville. An opponent of big government, he is an outspoken critic of Covered California, the state component of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known nationally as “Obamacare.” Seeking to provide a level “playing field” of competition in the economic marketplace, Gaines believes the current insurance bureaucracy is antagonistic to the business community, and that the existing governmental apparatus prevents the innovation of new products and services, thus preventing the introduction of new products and services for consumers, as well as denying them the freedom of choice.

The third contender of the office has no direct experience with the insurance industry, choosing instead to hinge her campaign on a platform of equality and access to healthcare. Nathalie Hrizi is a San Francisco school teacher running under the banner of the Peace and Freedom Party, which traces its lineage back to the counter culture/progressive political atmosphere of the 1960s. Since then, it has remained a constant force on the political scene, with sizable enclaves in a dozen states including California, promoting a decidedly feminist, socialist stance. Among the candidates it has endorsed over the decades are Rosanne Barr, Eldridge Cleaver, Leonard Peltier, Ralph Nadar, Cindy Sheehan, and Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Hrizi sees the insurance industry as part of a class-based repressive system intent on social division of the “haves” and the “have nots.” She particularly views the California Insurance Department as being deficient in the execution of its duties as a consumer protection agency, intent on promoting the interests-and profits-of “Fat Cat” insurers and health providers. In her opinion, these companies’ primary focus is the avoidance of providing medical benefits and services to policy holders who can pay their inflated premiums.

In her quest to ensure the rights of everyone to basic healthcare—regardless of the ability to pay—Hrizi proposes a moratorium on both insurance rate and premium increases. She wishes to by pass insurance companies all together by implementing a single-payer health system to be run by state government. The elimination of the profit-hungry medical industry apparatus could bring about Hrizi’s dream of a humane system that puts the needs of the public to the forefront.

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