Insurance Company Blackmail? Part 2

In a doozy of a follow up, Insurance Commissioner Garamendi has sent a letter to the FBI, US Attorney and California Attorney General requesting an investigation of this attempted blackmail.

Now, the cynical side of me has two reactions: First, this is an awful lot of PR for a guy running for office, and any publicity is good publicity if you are running for office.

Second, if this weren't true, why are the insurance company PR machines not running full speed ahead to kill this story? If someone accused me of attempted blackmail of a public official and it weren't true (which it wouldn't be), I would go on a full court press to disprove it. However, the insurance companies, who get press on a regular basis just for breathing it seems, are being awfully quiet about this topic.

I don't really care where you fall on the political spectrum. If the insurance industry really attempted to manipulate the system, it seems to me that a full investigation is warranted. Of course, this is also a reason why the insurance commission should not be an elected official and should be listed behind "Quackenbush, C."

Comments

[Jonathan]

Harvey -

Thanks for the comment. I am concerned that the insurance companies control the Department of Insurance. Speaking from experience, there are many more violations than the Department looks at, and part of it, to me, is that the Commissioner is either running for office.

Jonathan

[Harvey Rosenfield]

The voters were right to make the office directly accountable to themselves. If they hadn't this kind of corruption - which occurs every day in Sacramento - would never have been exposed. The solution to corruption is not less democracy, it's an investigation and prosecution.