This is a bit old, but somehow, I’d missed it.
State Senate Democrats sent out a news release today about a bill introduced by their Republican counterparts that would eliminate the elected office of insurance commissioner, which has been filled by Mike Kreidler since 2001. He began his fourth term in office in 2012.
Since federal health care reform passed, Kreidler has been all about health insurance, all the time. He’s the one who determines which insurance plans get included in the state exchange, and last year rankled some critics when he decided that some plans initially did not have robust enough offerings to be included — effectively limiting the options that were available in the exchange. The four plans that were denied entry appealed his decision, and he later settled with them so they all got included after all.
The Senate Republicans’ Bill 6458, which hasn’t even been heard in committee yet, “creates the state insurance board which will be responsible for the oversight of the insurance code.” It “transfers the powers, duties, and functions of the office of the insurance commissioner pertaining to regulation of insurance to the state insurance board.”
I’m not generally a fan of the way we elect so many executive positions. So I could probably hear arguments that putting that power in the Governor’s office is more logical.
Still, it seems to me that at least part of the reason that this could get 13 GOP co-sponsors is because of the way that the office has kicked ass for consumers. Both on the ACA and long before it (Seattle Times link). But if they oppose him making policy they’ve had 4 chances to take that case to the people. This seems like a pretty silly runaround.
My guess is they intend to fill that board with insurance industry executives.
Huh…Why do Republicans HATE DEMOCRACY so much????
What’s next? Will Republicans (plus Rodney Fucking Tom) change the law so that our U.S. Senators are appointed by the WA Senate?
@2 They’re not really against government if they can turn it into an operating subsidiary of their businesses. For example, that’s why they allowed the farm bill to go through.
Are there any bankers who aren’t crooks?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101375799
NSA Spied On 2009 UN Climate Change Conference
The NSA spied on UN climate change negotiations in December 2009, the Huffington Post and a Danish newspaper reported last night, based on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Eric Snowden.
“The Copenhagen summit was the first big climate meeting after the election of President Barack Obama, and was widely expected to yield a significant breakthrough. Other major developed nations were already part of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set emissions limits, while the United States — the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases when the protocol went into effect in 2004 — had famously declined to join. The two-week meeting was supposed to produce a successor agreement that would include the U.S., as well as China, India and other countries with rapidly increasing emissions.
“The document indicates that the NSA planned to gather information as the leaders and negotiating teams of other countries held private discussions throughout the Copenhagen meeting. ‘[L]eaders and negotiating teams from around the world will undoubtedly be engaging in intense last-minute policy formulating; at the same time, they will be holding sidebar discussions with their counterparts — details of which are of great interest to our policymakers,’ the document states. The information likely would be used to brief U.S. officials, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama, among others, according to the document.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....81362.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I don’t know about you, but if I were negotiating to buy a house, a car, or anything else, and I learned the seller was secretly intercepting my private communications about the negotiations, I would get up and walk out.
I’d be less concerned about NSA spying at the Climate Change Conference if I thought they were interested in doing something positive about climate change. But, like their industrial spying, it was undoubtably motivated by a desire to screw any other nation thinking about taking positive measures.