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Lower the Insurance Rates!

No More Bribes for the Insurance Commissioner!

By Adam Pedesclaux

The insurance rates in Louisiana are outrageous. Car and home insurance rates are nearly the highest in the country, and if you live in New Orleans, you also need flood insurance. If you’re poor or oppressed, you are punished doubly, since nearly all high elevation land is populated by rich people, a feature of the city established during the violent conquering and settling of the city landscape. Just as the landscape of New Orleans reflects the oppressive rule of the capitalists, the insurance rates also reflect their tight grip on power.

Before James Donelon (R), the latest politician to take the seat of Insurance Commissioner in Louisiana, there were three politicians: Doug Green (D), Jim Brown (D), J. Robert Wooley (D) all of whom went to prison for taking bribes/money laundering. Given that the Insurance Commissioner controls insurance rates and allows/bars insurance companies from operating in Louisiana, whoever serves in this position sits as the gatekeeper to insurance companies. So that the insurance companies can suck as much out of Louisiana ratepayers as possible, they keep plenty of cash on hand to “grease the palms” of the commissioner.

Whether or not Donelon has taken illegal bribes has yet to be revealed. That he has accepted more than $680,000 in legal bribes—aka campaign donations—from insurance companies and agents since 2015 ought to be a scandal.

Donelon, who hates workers, has even had the guts to say that car insurance rates are so high because of all the uninsured/underinsured drivers. But the lies don’t add up: nationwide, Louisiana ranks twentieth for the number of uninsured drivers, and yet we have the second highest rates in the country. How could working people even afford to have more insurance when the ruling class steals from of us left and right?

Insurance rates do not fall out of the sky. They are not “mathematically determined” nor are they set by any other scientific means. The reason so much of our hard-earned money is stolen each month is because the capitalist owned media conceal the true nature of the capitalist government. The news media would have us believe that Santa or the Easter Bunny sets these rates as much as they avoid the facts of this important issue.

The people ought to have the final say in how prices are set, but we workers have to fight for better conditions or we will continue to be taken advantage of. No more closed door negotiations and off-shore bank accounts! No more politicians in the pockets of the insurance companies! All power to the people!

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Only the Organized Working Class Can Stop Climate Change

By Casey Resto

In early October, the UN issued a special report updating specific aspects of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of 2014. The results suggest a centuries-long expansion in detrimental economic and environmental effects on humanity. Lower income individuals will be the most severely impacted as we’re the ones least able to afford what insurance companies deem “Acts of God.”

While international agreements require governments to pledge a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases, only an organization of the workers of the world will have the power to meet the severity of the crisis.

The United States’ decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and recently, to withdraw from the Paris Agreement show that a government will ignore eventual and irreversible consequences for humanity if it’s set up to maintain the rule of the rich over everyone else. We, the majority, will be the ones working in hotter and nastier weather.

Natural disasters have occurred at alarming rates: in 2018 alone, the U.S. was battered by Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael, floods displaced more than a million people in Kerala, India and Typhoon Mangkhut destroyed more than 10,000 homes in the Philippines and China, to name just a few examples.

These catastrophes destroy the environment and its inhabitants, but the effects of these losses are experienced unevenly depending on how a society is organized. Under capitalism, we workers and oppressed take the brunt of the hit. In capitalist society we see incarcerated workers in California fighting deadly wildfires for less than $2 a day. We see North Carolina’s state government refuse to evacuate prisoners in the midst of Hurricane Florence (a category 4 at the time). Over and over we see the cruelty of capitalism.

Low income communities are affected as city boards refuse to update their infrastructure to deal with the worsening effects of climate change. New Orleans residents are still feeling the costs of the August 2017 floods. The Sewerage and Water Board’s failure to do their job caused many damages to homes and cars.

These are not unique cases. As the environment worsens, so do our working conditions, our wages and our ability to afford stable living situations that can withstand the drastic changes to our climate. The destruction of the environment and its irreversible effects are an inevitable consequence of imperialism, materialism, and militarism. Capitalism’s persistent and eager need to consume, colonize and destroy in the name of money will only continue to devastate and ravage the world we live in, all for the pleasure of the bourgeoisie. 

We cannot take a passive approach to climate change. Laws take years to enact, and the 2014 IPCC assessment claims that even if global emissions were to stop within the next 24 hours, damages are already locked in for centuries. Those at the top won’t give up their greed. Our only option is to organize and make revolution.

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The Great Louisiana Car & Home Insurance Swindle

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER OWNED BY THE COMPANIES
NEW STATE TASK FORCE WON’T SOLVE PROBLEM

By Gavrielle Gemma

Once again car insurance rates went up this year, just like every year before. Some hugely profitable companies got rates hike of 15%. Orleans Parish and Baton Rouge drivers are charged 25% more than surrounding areas. Louisiana homeowners pay 143% higher rates that other states Despite low wages, Louisiana has the second highest car and homeowners insurance rates in the whole country.

Why is this? Because the Commissioner of Insurance, Jim Donelon, like those before him are owned lock stock and barrel by the industry. The Commissioner of insurance is elected every 4 years, but it is hardly democratic. The Insurance industry turned over a million dollars to Donelon. As one opposing candidate Donald Hodge put it : “Louisiana doesn’t actually have an Insurance Commissioner. The insurance companies have an Insurance Commissioner,” This shows once again we don’t have a real democracy, we have a capitalist state that functions to shovel profits to big business at the expense of the workers.

HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE TAKE?
A whopping 18% of our family budget pays for insurance, sometimes more. But in a crisis, it doesn’t even cover our losses. Donelon complains the high cost is because so many drivers lack comprehensive coverage. You need a car for work, but you only make $7.25 or even $11 an hour. We can’t afford even basic liability. A ticket for no insurance and your life can spin out of control fast. Insurance has become a tax imposed by the government to subsidize the insurance industry, which makes record profits.

Louisiana has given exemptions to corporations that have totaled $11 billion in 10 years. These taxes should be collected, and we can set up a people’s insurance fund, with a board of residents to oversee it, all prohibited from payoffs from the companies. This board could insure drivers and homeowners in the event of any catastrophe, accident, fire or flood.

THIS IS CORRUPTION
If the Insurance Commissioner got a free driveway from a company, it is corruption. But in the eyes of the law, if he takes a million dollars in campaign contributions, it’s legal. In actuality, campaign contributions are bribes, and you are guaranteed a cushy job in the industry if you leave the post. Prior to being the Commissioner, Donelon was on the legislatures Insurance Committee, also the recipient of campaign contributions (bribes) to pass favorable laws for them and against the people.

While the rich members of the state legislature have allowed and aided in this corruption they finally had to admit it’s out of control. Their answer is to set up the Louisiana High Auto Rates Task Force. But who is on it? Legislators, insurance companies, lawyers and corporations. They were appointed by guess who? Jim Donelon, the puppet of the insurance industry.

Once again it is clear that independent working class organizing is necessary on this critical hardship. We should be wary, not hopeful, of this Taskforce, which may try to enact measures forcing drivers to buy more insurance or impose more fines.