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Juanita is wondering if you remember back in the days of Republicans and their insurance business buddies pushing so hard for tort reform because that, and that alone, would lower our insurance rates so dramatically that insurance would be practically free?

Sure, you do.

Who could forget that?  We gave them tort reform so corporations could feed you poison or rip you off or damage your body with no repercussions because you can trust the free market to take care of these things.  If enough people die from eating from bad peanut butter, people will stop buying peanut butter and the companies will go out of business.  Right?  See, it’s just that easy.

Besides, we can trust juries with life and death, but we cannot trust them with something far more valuable than that – money.  We have to keep juries from holding corporations accountable because that could lead straight to — I dunno, something really, really bad.  Like unobscene profits.

And then the insurance companies can lower your premiums because they’re not having to pay out when you get mold or have a actual claim.

It all seemed to be working hunky dorey, huh?

Except insurance rates didn’t go down.  At all.

In fact, now they are trying to hide how much they are going up —

AUSTIN – An unprecedented move by the Texas Department of Insurance to publicize recent rate hikes by State Farm Insurance sparked a legal challenge from the company Tuesday over what it said was confidential information.

Texas’ largest insurer filed suit against the state agency seeking to protect from disclosure certain information that State Farm said could benefit its rivals in the insurance industry.

The legal action followed the Insurance Department’s decision to post on its Web site two State Farm rate proposals – filed over the last eight months – that increase homeowner premiums an average of 13 percent for the company’s 1.2 million Texas customers.

That’s right.  State Farm has asked for two rate hikes in 8 months because their idea of insurance is that you give them money and they keep it.  Forever.

State Farm Insurance’s chairman and CEO received an 82 percent raise after the company posted a record profit last year, a statement from the Bloomington-Ill.-based insurer said this week.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ed Rust Jr. got a $5.26 million raise. He earned $11.66 million in 2006 with a base salary of $1.77 million and results-based bonus of $9.89 million, the statement said. Rust made $6.4 million in 2005 and $5.5 million in 2004.

The absence of a major catastrophe helped the insurer generate a record $5.32 billion profit last year, compared to $3.24 billion in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, release said.

They had a three billion dollar profit even when Hurricane Katrina hit.

And how have they been doing lately, even with the markets bad?

Last month – “State Farm Insurance Cos. rebounded along with the financial markets in 2009, posting a $777 million profit and boosting its net worth by 9 percent to $58.1 billion, the company said Friday.”

Which leads me to a question – how much is enough?

You know, it seems to me that the teabaggers ought to be upset about this.  But, they are not.  They have become sheeple for the irresponsible  corporate raping of citizens.

I will now hand my soapbox to someone else.  Thank you for not leaving in the middle of my rant.

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