GA insurance commissioner: Having a preexisting condition is your fault

Release:  Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Atlanta, GA – Recently, Georgia State Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens spoke at a monthly meeting of the CSRA Republican Women’s Club, an affiliate of the Georgia Federation of Republican Women.  In his remarks, Hudgens compared pre-existing conditions, such as cancer, hemophilia, brain tumors, arthritis, and asthma to having a car accident that is “your fault.”

Transcript:  “I’ve had several companies come in and they have said just the fact, just the fact in the individual market that pre-existing conditions now have to be covered on January 1^st, that is going to double the cost of insurance.  And, if you don’t really understand, what covering pre-existing conditions would be like, it would be like in Georgia, we have a law that says you have to have insurance on your automobile, you have to have liability insurance if you’re going to drive on Georgia’s roads, you have to have liability insurance.  You don’t have to have collision, you don’t have to have comprehensive, you don’t have to have rental car or towing or anything else.  You have to have liability.  But, say you’re going along and you have a wreck and it’s your fault.  Well, a pre-existing condition would be then you calling up your insurance agent and saying ‘I’d like to get collision insurance on my car’ and your insurance agent says ‘Well, you’ve never had that before. Why would you want that now?’  And you say ‘Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car.’ 

And that’s the exact same thing on pre-existing insurance.”

“These remarks illustrate how callous and out-of-touch Ralph and the Georgia Republican Party have become,” said Democratic Party of Georgia Chair DuBose Porter.  “It is awful to think you could tell a woman who was just diagnosed with breast cancer that it’s her fault.”

Porter added, “Georgians need affordable health care, regardless of their medical history.  Our insurance commissioner, at his own admission, has done everything possible to keep that from happening.”

Find video of Hudgens’ remarks here.

Background:

AJC 8/29/13:  Ga. insurance chief brags about sabotage of ObamaCare

Ralph Hudgens bragged to a group of Republicans in Floyd County that he and the GOP officials in the state were doing “everything in our power to be an obstructionist.” 

Video of Hudgens’ remarks made August of this year can be found here.

Huffington Post 9/5/13:  Obamacare Obstructionists Are Ironically Doing A Great Job Raising Awareness Of Exchange Navigators

In the same address to Floyd County Republicans, Hudgens admits to stonewalling the licensing process for health care navigators, saying “We have passed a law that says that a navigator, which is a position in that exchange, has to be licensed by our Department of Insurance.  The ObamaCare law says that we cannot require them to be an insurance agent, so we said fine, we’ll just require them to be a licensed navigator. So we’re going to make up the test, and basically you take the insurance agent test, you erase the name, you write ‘navigator test’ on it.”

WSB-TV 10/28/13:  Georgia insurance commissioner: I hope Obamacare implodes

In a recent interview with WSB’s Lori Geary, Hudgens says of Obamacare “I hope the whole thing implodes.”