More Compulsory Insurance. The Obama Administration is showing again that it is really a Republican Administration controlled in every matter and to every degree by the rich and the corporations they control.
+
An article from January 5th but hilited on AOL today says that FEMA is forcing millions of people to buy flood insurance against their will.

These premiums can cost anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars a year. And, in a sweet-heart deal if ever there was one for insurance companies, flood insurance is a requirement for anyone whose mortgage is backed by the federal government. And, yes, more than 50 percent of all mortgages in this country are now guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (who, by the way, ought to be married by now, don't you think?)

I'll pass over the apparent suggestion that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should merge.
+
It would appear we shall soon be the United States of Insurance, with a government over the people, by the insurance companies, for the insurance companies. It's time for Congress to step in and tell FEMA to go f* itself, and tell Government backers of mortgages that if they are worried about floods, they should include flood insurance as a condition to such backing when the loan is first taken out — not after — just like homeowners insurance or PMI (private mortgage insurance), and then only if subject to rigorous Governmental regulation. Indeed, any insurance that is compulsory should be available from Governmental, not-for-profit companies, not just from private you-bet-for-profit companies, but FEMA flood insurance is not available to individuals unless their entire municipality participates in the National Flood Insurance Program. So in demanding that everyone in places that FEMA, on its own say-so, defines as a flood-hazard area, must buy flood insurance, FEMA is requiring people to give their money to a private corporation, every year without end, whether they are EVER flooded or not. What do you call paying something for nothing? Oh yes: a scam.
+
In any case, no one who secured a mortgage without flood insurance should now be required to buy flood insurance unless they have actually experienced a flood. They should be "grandfathered". And people in areas that have rarely or never had floods should not be required to take such insurance, or such premiums as they are required to pay should be adjusted steeply downward by some defensible schedule based on actual probabilities.
+
This has become a Nation of crybabies and scaredy-cats living their whole life in fear and spending inordinate amounts of money for "protection". Those companies that profit from people's insecurities are running a "protection racket", and should be reined in by Government, not handed millions of unwilling customers. The Government of the United States is intended to serve the people, not the insurance companies.
+
First compulsory health insurance, then compulsory flood insurance. What next, compulsory life insurance, renter's insurance, collision insurance (as distinct from automotive liability insurance), child insurance, flight insurance, weather insurance — vacation insurance? — all from private corporations, of course. The Fifth Amendment is clear: government may not require people to buy anything from any private company as a condition to living in the United States. Government may require certain insurances as conditions precedent to extending credit or mortgage backing. But any such requirement must be approved by Congressional action, not bureaucratic fiat, and it must provide Governmental insurance for all people affected, not just some. The FEMA website makes this extraordinary assertion:

Who needs flood insurance? Everyone.

Oh? I live on the side of a gentle hill almost 200 feet above sea level, in a seaport, so any heavy rain flows without obstacle down to the sea. I need flood insurance? No, I sure as hell do not.
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:46 PM