Why the Elected Insurance Commissioner?

Posted by admin in Delaware, Health Care on Sep 4th, 2008 | no responses

I came across this story on a race for insurance commissioner in Delaware, which got me wondering about the wisdom of putting a lot of executive offices up for popular vote.

This article from Delaware Online gives a snippet of a profile of three Democrats who want to be the state's next insurance commissioner. It gives little information about the Republican candidate, so I can't comment, but the main ideas of each one of the Democratic candidates would lead the state down the wrong road.

[Tom] Savage is promoting a single-payer health plan funded by an income tax on workers and businesses, covering medical, dental and eye care.

[Gene] Reed supports a health insurance purchasing pool, expanding eligibility for the State Children's Health Insurance Program and instituting parity for mental health and standard medical services.

[Karen] Weldin Stewart wants to give the agency the authority to review health insurance rates, add a payment process to the state's electronic Health Information Network and make the arbitration process binding.

I suppose that Weldin-Stewart would do the least damage to the state, but that's not saying much.

But to the larger point: Why elect the insurance commissioner? Insurance companies are right up there with oil and pharmaceutical companies as the bogeymen of the American economy. It would be easy to cross the line from necessary and useful regulation (whatever that might look like) to full-blown populism, which usually ends badly.