Comment by gruez
1 day ago
> Whereas UK and Canadian politicians have to answer to their constituents.
Yeah, and "politicians have to answer to their constituents" is how we got the failed insurance markets in California and Florida. This thread has now gone full circle.
Politicians dont answer to their constituents when it comes to climate change. Anywhere.
People are still building in flood zones, or shorelines which will go under. Governments dont have the ability to tell their citizens the bad news.
Someone has to do that, but politicans arent going to take that role up.
That is the problem with conflating insurance and subsidy.
To buy votes, politicians sell “insurance”, but in reality it is a subsidy to a specific group of taxpayers.
When a government directly pays for healthcare, it can’t be called insurance, and so limits to the subsidy are easily attributed to the government leaders.
Whereas, if a government has the population buy “insurance” from non governmental entities, then it can pretend (for the layperson) that it isn’t a government subsidy and so the laypeople can blame limits of the subsidy on someone else.
Obviously, health insurance in the US is far from health insurance and premiums are closer to taxes being paid rather than premiums for one’s own health risks.
That isn’t so true in property and casualty insurance, at least not until governments like California step in.