Candidate for
Insurance Commissioner; State of California

We need to reduce or eliminate the power of giant corporations like the insurance companies. I am running for Insurance Commissioner as part of a movement against corporate power and for democracy and equality.

If elected, I will fight discrimination and red-lining in insurance, work to reduce insurance company bureaucracy and red tape, and end the practices by which companies try to avoid risk by dumping those who need help the most

But that's not enough. We need to separate out those functions of insurance which are socially necessary and provide them as a society. We all need health care. We have a common interest in seeing that basic coverage exists for injuries and damage caused by vehicle accidents. As a candidate and as insurance commissioner I will work to create new institutions or reform old ones to meet basic human needs.

We need one universal health care system, not a maze of inadequate and contradictory plans. The state or federal government must take the responsibility of paying for health care for all.

We also need a single state automobile liability insurance plan, covering every vehicle and every driver without insurance company overhead. Plans like this, covering basic liability for property damage and personal injury, have been successful in several Canadian provinces. They add a surcharge to the vehicle license fee, so that every car on the road is covered as part of its registration. An even simpler plan would be "pay at the pump" a surcharge on fuel which would essentially let vehicle owners reduce their insurance costs by driving less or using greater fuel efficiency. This would also mean that all out-of-state vehicles on California roads would be automatically covered.

The recent "reforms" in workers' compensation insurance show the futility of relying on the private sector to give injured and ill workers the assistance they need. We should join those other states and Canadian provinces which have an exclusive state workers' compensation fund, without insurance company profits.

We need to keep the promises we owe to each other as members of society to heal the sick, to care for the aged, to educate the children. We must come together to build a new society based on cooperation and caring. Then we won't need parasites like the insurance companies