@mateosfo @BlakeKellii I agree with most points. I don't think mitigation efforts at community level should be done by the commissioner. I'm not defending home level mitigation efforts. I was responding Blake's comment.
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Scottri
153 posts
@stri1029 @BlakeKellii Mitigations on individual homes do not prevent fires or save those homes, the insurers are empirically correct. Only mitigations at community/neighborhood scale can do that. Unless the insurance commissioner will mandate them, they won't happen.
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This is perhaps the worst socialist policy idea I've ever seen and while it sucks they have a shot at getting it through, I'm grateful to David for helping raise its salience.
Public insurance for homes would lead to instantaneous bankruptcy for the State of California.
David Dayen@ddayen
An important race affecting affordability for millions is totally off the radar. Jane Kim, candidate for California insurance commissioner, is pitching a single payer program for disaster insurance, to align insurance with homeowners. prospect.org/2026/05/14/jan…
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@mateosfo @BlakeKellii I just feel like a policy of "4 million people potentially being displaced oh well" is not really a tenable political solution. Granted neither is the current situation either.
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@mateosfo @BlakeKellii What's not right? Insurers did not want to offer discounts for mitigation because they didn't believe in their effects on preventing fires. The state passed a law requiring them to. But those discounts have been minimal.
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@mattyglesias And yet he has this stupid idea on freezing insurance rates. Seems like they needs to cut a bigger check.
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I'm actually very Becerra-skeptical since he seems like a status quo guy in a state that needs reform, but every time I read these leftist takes about how he's in the pocket of Big Oil I like him more.
Jamie Henn@jamieclimate
“I think Big Oil is choosing its governor.” California’s largest oil driller just gave $500,000 to an independent expenditure campaign supporting Xavier Becerra. California can’t afford a governor that’s in the pocket of Big Oil. They’ll push him to weaken environmental protections, slow walk clean energy, and look the other way when they gouge consumers at the pump.
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@BlakeKellii @mateosfo Also insurance companies were originally largely unwilling to offer incentives for fireproofing homes until the insurance commissioner stepped in. Not saying this wouldn't eventually happen in an open market. But that's how it played out.
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@BlakeKellii @mateosfo I agree with that. But mitigation measures cost billions and are reflected in the state budget and utility rates. So costs are being spread out. Mitigation isn't moving fast enough to keep up with risk, though. Again, a larger fix needed.
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@stri1029 one way to avoid forcing taxpayers from bailing out private homeowners is to allow the price of living in high risk areas be reflected in the cost of the homes in those areas.
actually, that's not quite right. it's the only way
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@mateosfo Baccera's plan is dumber, but the state does need to figure out how to spread the cost of wildfire risk for utility rate payers and homeowners. These aren't just rural homes. Risk is high in a bunch of urban areas as well. You could easily end up like Florida.
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If Jane Kim gets into the top two in the insurance commissioner race, California is screwed.
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@djw172 Not endorsing her plan but people being pushed onto the FAIR plan are not just rural homeowners. The fire risk is now in urban areas. See the fires last January in LA. Cali has to find a way to equitably spread those costs or housing willl be cost prohibited in more urban places.
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She's done a lot in her political career to make housing in San Francisco as expensive as possible; there's real continuity with her plan to use insurance regulation to enact a massive wealth transfer from mostly urban low-risk homeowners to mostly rural high risk homeowners.
David Dayen@ddayen
An important race affecting affordability for millions is totally off the radar. Jane Kim, candidate for California insurance commissioner, is pitching a single payer program for disaster insurance, to align insurance with homeowners. prospect.org/2026/05/14/jan…
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@SaladBarFan People who lost their houses in Palisades, Eaton are just boomer vacation homes?
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On top of already making it impossible for young people to afford housing in CA, the anti-monopoly people also want to tax us to subsidize boomer vacation homes in disaster prone areas
David Dayen@ddayen
An important race affecting affordability for millions is totally off the radar. Jane Kim, candidate for California insurance commissioner, is pitching a single payer program for disaster insurance, to align insurance with homeowners. prospect.org/2026/05/14/jan…
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@b2b_mikey @jasonc_nc I agree more insurers are needed but also need to find another way to spread costs. Or else you'll end up like Florida where costs are so high the market is gone.
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@stri1029 @jasonc_nc I just don't see a good solution that doesn't involve letting insurance companies price risk correctly and invite competition into the market. This seems like the opposite.
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just found the stupidest subsidy suggestion ever.
David Dayen@ddayen
An important race affecting affordability for millions is totally off the radar. Jane Kim, candidate for California insurance commissioner, is pitching a single payer program for disaster insurance, to align insurance with homeowners. prospect.org/2026/05/14/jan…
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@b2b_mikey @jasonc_nc And also no this isn't the stupidest suggestion ever. The stupidest is Baccera's idea of freezing premiums. I don't think we should spread these costs out among just homeowners tho.
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@b2b_mikey @jasonc_nc I think the problem is places that used to not be high risk are now high risk. So unless we should just let places like Palisades or Eaton become unlivable, we need to figure out the insurance thing.
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An important race affecting affordability for millions is totally off the radar. Jane Kim, candidate for California insurance commissioner, is pitching a single payer program for disaster insurance, to align insurance with homeowners.
prospect.org/2026/05/14/jan…
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Liberals don't reckon with this enough. We have a slow motion debt catastrophe ongoing. Yes, we must save democracy. We must also get our fiscal house in order.
Alec Stapp@AlecStapp
Last month, the US national debt surpassed 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II. Some people hope we can grow our way out of debt with AI. But as growth rates increase, interest rates (and debt service costs) also increase. So AI won't save us from our fiscal crisis...
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My favorite piece of California lore is the fact that the state could have a budget surplus if it just stopped paying for Healthcare for illegal immigrants
But they won't
So instead they have one of the worst deficits in the country
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@kausmickey It was a wildfire in the middle of the winter. Unless people like you acknowledge the increase risk of climate change is increasing costs in a number of ways, we can't fix the issues.
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She really does blame climate change. Pathetic. Did climate change empty the reservoir?
RNC Research@RNCResearch
CNN: Another issue is your response to the deadly California fires...are you responsible for the mismanagement that did occur? BASS: "Well...with climate change..."
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@RealBrittHughes I literally don't know what the critique is here. As long as you say California sucks with a certain tone on here, 100s of bots will just like it.
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This sounds cool. But wait.
400 diapers will last a family with a newborn approximately five weeks.
The program will cost the state approx. $12.4 million this year alone.
That money will be funneled through a company called Baby2Baby, which will then provide their branded diapers to 400 participating in hospitals (California has over 500 hospitals in total.)
Meaning that instead of lowering taxes and letting families keep their own money to buy essentials like diapers, California takes their money, pumps it through a “nonprofit” that has overhead and whose CEO made $240,000 in 2024, to provide a “free” service available only in certain locations, and that you could have bought yourself for much cheaper.
FactPost@factpostnews
Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced California will be the first state in the nation to provide free diapers to newborns. Families will receive 400 diapers when discharged from the hospital.
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@Ross_Warren9 @johnloeber The problem is climate change has increased risk/cost. People don't want increased costs. Florida tried this and prices increased while carriers left state. What needs to happen is a broader discussion on how to pay for the increase wildfire risks- insurance and utility rates.
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@johnloeber More saying if you fix the environment more - they'll bring in new solutions!
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New Podcast!
Natural disasters make the Insurance Commissioner California's most important office after Governor.
But insurance is broken in California. Homeowners can't get decent coverage. Why? And how do we fix it? I interviewed Patrick Wolff for answers.
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