Posted On: June 13, 2008, 12:46 pm CDT

Posted By: Craig Chamberlain

Bottom line is the states want to protect the bureaucratic empires they have created. The reason states are fighting so hard to keep their individual insurance departments is to matintin control of "their" power and our money. It is impractical and unrealistic to think an elected insurance commissioner will provide objective oversight. Most use the position as a high profile stepping stone to higher public office. The consumer, insurance companies and agents all suffer from very slow response from state insurance departments unless the issue is a "headline grabber". The states claim to be concerned about insurer solvency yet their own state run insurance programs (Citizen's for example) would not be approved to do business in their own states due to insufficient capital and surplus. I suppose the states know they can simply levy a tax to cover their inevitable insurance losses.

Businesses are benefiting from technological advancements and borders are being broken down creating truly a global economy. Why would anyone support the continuation of such a fractured and inefficient system? I would prefer to have one roll of red tape to deal with in D.C. as opposed to the 50 different colored rolls of tape that we deal with now. What do you think?