🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992May20.181941.26179@tfs.com> (sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation,pb.general), kudzu@tfs.com (Michael Sierchio) writes:
> In article <D2150035.3vcavy@outpost.SF-Bay.org> 
> 	 peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce) writes:
> 
> >
> >You can fix the problem of people being uninsured much easier than
> >completely overhauling the current insurance system and replacing
> >it with socialized insurance.  
>          ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^
> 
> Loaded term -- it is, in fact, redundant. If the law requires you to
> purchase insurance, that's socialized.  It only benefits a handful
> of companies whose oligopolistic trade practices are exempt from
> antitrust regulations.  Free enterprise for the poor, socialism for
> the rich!  Why not make all roads toll roads, instead of taxing me
> in CA for a road you drive in AZ? Yeesh.

How did we leap to "Free enterprise for the poor, socialism for the rich!".
Your logic escapes me...

There is a significant difference between having the government administer
insurance and having private enterprise do it.  I've personally switched
insurance companies to take advantage of better rates or better service.
I wouldn't be able to make this type of choice if the government was
the sole provider.  The government is again and again demonstrated
that it is not an efficient provider of services, especially when
it is in a monopolistic situation.

Also, we don't have a "handful of oligopolistic" insurance companies.
We have hundreds here.  California auto insurance is broken not because
of a conspiracy by insurance companies, but because of the litigiation
explosion in this state.  The trial lawyer's lobby controls the state
legislature.

Too many uninsured motorist also contributes, but is secondary after
the broken California tort system. 

As to toll roads.  The fringe environmentalists continue to stifle
attempts at introducing the good idea of private toll roads in this
state.  

> >If you required proof of insurance each year when people renewed their
> >registration you would eliminate most of the problem.  Also adding
> >some bite to the penalties for driving without insurance would make
> >a difference too.  
> 
> This hasn't worked -- Florida, for example, has almost as high a percentage
> of uninsured drivers as California -- Florida has such a law, CA doesn't.

I has worked.  I've lived in Ohio.  There people must be insured to
register a car and they have a higher percentage of insured cars than
California does.  I don't know what's wrong with Florida system, I've
never lived there.

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