Declarations

Healthy Action

“The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality, affordable options for those who don’t; and bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and our government, while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. It is legislation that is fully paid for and it will reduce our long-term federal deficit.”

—President Obama after the House of Representatives narrowly (220-215) passed sweeping health care legislation.

Opposing View

“This bill is indeed historic in its combination of higher premiums, higher taxes, Medicare cuts and more federal debt… We should start step-by-step to reduce costs by allowing small businesses to combine their health plans, permitting individuals to buy insurance across state lines and reducing junk lawsuits against doctors.”

—Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, on the House healthcare bill.

Unhappy Agents

“The House passed a bill … that includes a government-run health insurance plan (‘public option’) that would unfairly compete with the private insurance marketplace, limit consumer choice and increase the taxpayer burden. This bill picks winners and losers, and small businesses and health care consumers are the biggest losers today.”

—Charles Symington, Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America (Big I) senior vice president of government affairs.

Imaginative Workers

“Desperate workers can be very imaginative when they smell workers comp money. As long as you have a down economy, you’re going to have people trying to scam the system just to save their own hides.”

—Jim Quiggle of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud on a recent Good Morning America feature about bogus workers comp claims.

Property Opportunity

“In commercial as well as personal lines, there’s certainly opportunity in catastrophic zones. In fact, the opportunity may be greater for the specialty market, domestic and international, to write catastrophic property than it is to write property that’s not catastrophic. Coastal property, whether it be in the Northeast or all the way down to Florida, that property is certainly subject to catastrophic activity.”

—Burns & Wilcox CEO Alan Kaufman in an interview with Insurance Journal during a recent meeting of the National Association of Surplus Lines Offices.

Topics Legislation Property