North Dakota’s candidates for insurance commissioner agree that protecting the consumer is their top priority but disagree over who best can get it done.
Republican Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm and Democratic challenger Jasper Schneider, both Fargo lawyers, traded jabs throughout an hour-long debate in evening on October 15.
Hamm said that with a GOP-controlled state Legislature, he’s the one more likely to make progress.
Schneider, a state representative from Fargo, called that notion hogwash. He said he has co-sponsored bipartisan proposals and partisanship is “no way to move forward.”
Hamm is seeking his first elected term after he was appointed last year to succeed Jim Poolman, who resigned.
Schneider said North Dakotans want a chance to elect an insurance commissioner “Standing up for people is what I do,” he said.
The candidates were asked if they thought the commissioner should appear in a consumer advertisement four months before an election. Schneider said the commissioner should deliver a message “but there is a tasteful way to do it,” and not immediately prior to an election.
He called Hamm’s appearance in an ad designed to help senior citizens “blatantly in your face and political.”
Hamm said the commissioner should appear in ads at any time, and he said the only thing political about the ad aimed at seniors was the “partisan criticism that followed.”
Both men said they support a proposal to put control of the state workers’ compensation agency under the governor. Schneider said he would support privatization as an option “only because things have gone so haywire.”
Hamm did not say whether he supported privatization. “I think we can fix the system we have, but I think all the issues need to be on the table,” he said.
Schneider cited his background as an attorney for injured workers and said he would be “ethical, transparent and tough.”
Hamm said his philosophy is to be a “fair and consistent regulator.” He said North Dakotans need to be treated more fairly in Medicare reimbursement. They also must “get healthy, ourselves,” he said.
Hamm called the state’s largest insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, a “monopoly that’s not working” and that as the state insurance commissioner, he would watch the insurer “like a hawk.” He rejected two recent Blues requests for rate increases.
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