The Insurance Commissioner Gig Job Description Just Keeps Growing

Talk about your Augean Stables.

The Peach Pundit call for articles by candidates for the Insurance Commissioner race came and went and the respondee's have their responses up for public view. And it's pretty damn interesting for newly born insurance junkies like me. I tried and tried to come with 750 words for my contribution but was unable to get it done by the deadline and so passed on the opportunity.

The readership should head over and review my opponents statements as well cast a vote in the nifty online poll that currently has Gerry Purcell running neck and neck with Seth Harp. That's a major surprize to me because I've been forecasting with the "Who's got da Money?" model which predicts the runoff will be between Ralph Hudgens and Maria Sheffield. At the moment, Gerry and Seth have the most active polldaddy base but that could change radically tomorrow. We'll have to wait and see.

One cool aspect of this exercise is the opportunity for each candidate to differentiate themselves from the rest of the herd in republican land. I was also keen to see if the only other candidate that will definitely be on the ballot this fall, Mary Squires, wanted to venture out of the safe confines of democratland and brave the lion pit. She did and she intends to put all sorts Crisis Command Centers and Conviction Teams and Enforcement Squads and such into action if elected.

Here are some thumbnail reviews of the candidates ideas that were presented that I'll have to research to see if they are a good fit for my campaign this fall.

Ralph Hudgens didn't really address anything concrete about specific programs or problem areas. The Dude has a lot experience with the industry but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Gerry Purcell came out hard on the ethics thing and that's good. The Ox was legendary for abusing the office for political gain. He's one of the most vocal opponents out there on Obamacare and the High Risk Pool controversy. As a Libertarian, I also oppose the impending federal healthcare mandates but I think we have to find some mechanism that will allow Georgia citizens that are not viable customers for insurance companies to gain coverage. He's got quite a list of other ideas I'd like to pluck if he doesn't make the run off.

Seth Harp talked a lot about his qualifications like Ralph did. At the tailend of his spiel he got into specific ideas and you gotta like them. Crack down on fraud, fight to reduce the mandates and bring in more insurance companies. As far as I know, the only item he might be able to achieve is fraud crackdown. The mandates and the premium tax will have to addressed in the legislature.

That's enough for this particular post, the readership is encouraged to head over and review the statements themselves as one of those rascally republicans will be on the ballot this fall. And be sure to vote in the online poll for Maria Sheffield! She's the one I want to compete with this fall!