Support public financing

By Lynn Davidson, Letter to the Editor

You have to wonder where all these legislators were last year when a proposal to allow California's Department of Insurance to regulate health insurance rates died in committee. That is why California regulators now do not have the authority to review and approve those rates.

Could it be that generous campaign donations from huge for-profit insurance companies keep our state government impotent, while the elected officials put on a show of hand-wringing to make the electorate think they are really working for us, not them?

To make politicians really represent the public, we need the option of voluntary public financing of election campaigns, beginning with the pilot program for secretary of state proposed in Proposition 15, on the June ballot. If that works, we can go on to cover insurance commissioner and maybe eventually the rest of our elected officials.

Lynn Davidson, Berkeley

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