JANUARY 13 — It’s easy to trigger Americans. Just say "Communist”. "Socialist” also works, but that’s essentially the same thing to them, as is "China” today.

Americans hate socialism with a passion.

"Why should I pay for services enjoyed by lazy f*#kers who don’t pay their own way.

That’s why they hate universal healthcare, funded by taxpayers and available to all who need, as is practised in the UK and most European nations, and even Third Word countries like Malaysia.

Americans don’t mind their tax dollars being spent on aircraft carriers and billion-dollar bombers that drop taxpayer-funded bombs in far-off "shithole” countries, or for Israelis to flatten Gaza.

But for their neighbours and compatriots’ hospital stay? No way, Jose!

So, they came up with Healthcare Insurance.

As a capitalist solution, it must, obviously, make profits. That way, everyone can buy insurers’ stocks and share in the assured prosperity.

The irony is lost on Americans that insurance, while very much a capitalist tool, is also very much socialist in nature. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is widely associated with Karl Marx and his ideas on communism but parts of which are traced back to the New Testament of the Bible (Acts of the Apostles – "distribution was made unto every man according as he had need”.)

Its premise is that everyone chips in a relatively modest sum of money (you know, like paying tax) to spread risks among many people. So, when one or two encounters an unfortunate loss, the collective resources of the many are used to help the "poor” victims. Exactly like socialism, and universal healthcare.

So, when one or two encounters an unfortunate loss, the collective resources of the many are used to help the "poor” victims.

Exactly like socialism, and universal healthcare.

Except that capitalist insurance is run as a for-profit business, with priority to generating a profit. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

So, the insurers hire the smartest and brightest people to figure out the risks that need covering, and how much premium to charge per insured person, which should generate enough revenue to cover all anticipated payouts, plus overheads and administrative costs, leaving a healthy profit margin for executive bonuses and shareholders’ dividends. Perfect!

The problem arises when capitalists decide the easy way to achieve all these goals is to cap the payouts to a pre-determined level, regardless of the merit of claims.

And the law says they can.

If you are unhappy, you can appeal.

To the very people who denied your claim in the first place.

You could take them to court, of course, at a cost greater than the claim you needed but was denied while they have teams of high-powered lawyers on retainer.

Hence, Luigi Mangione happened.

A tragedy for more than one party, a nation divided.

Now, Los Angeles is burning, tempers are raging.

Evidence is emerging that insurers knew the disaster was coming. Did THEY know? Of course they did. It’s their job, or at least the job of some specialists in the insurance industry.

Their task is to assess risks, they did and found it unacceptably high.

Normally, premiums are calculated to account for the risks, so that even if unfortunate events occur, the pool of premiums collected from the 100 per cent can compensate the 1 or 2 per cent of all insured who suffered losses, and still leave a profit.

When the risks go up, the premiums need to go up, too.

Here is where politicians come in.

The popular ones get voted in, and they need to stay popular to be voted in again the next time.

Allowing premiums to go up would hurt that popularity. So, no to increases.

Faced with heightened risks to cover but not allowed to raise premiums, insurers did what comes naturally to capitalists – they are no longer willing sellers, they stop insuring.

So the California government came up with a non-capitalist solution. They created an insurance pool that offered home insurance at popular rates, and forced insurers to collectively bear the risks, pro-rated according to the number of customers they had. Kinda like Socialism.

Some insurers voted with their feet and pulled out altogether, but many stayed, and they are now faced with being forced to collectively bear the burden of losses which they chose not to bear individually.

So who is actually to blame for the huge economic losses from the California fires?

Many parties share the blame. Ignoring or denying the effects of climate and weather, ignoring the studies and conclusions of expert actuaries who did their work diligently, populist politicians, builders and buyers of homes in places that were fire hazards even if big fires have not happened in years, cutting budgets for firefighting and reducing fire risks, all these contributed.

The US had the expertise and resources to build 3 firefighting supertankers from Boeing B-747s that would have been useful right about now but they no longer exist because they were not profitable for several years.

Sorry, but capitalism, focusing on quarterly profits and all that.

If they have 3 B-747 supertankers today, how much of the current losses could have been prevented?

I’m sure the actuaries can work out how much it costs to acquire, operate and maintain the assets, versus the savings.

Does this make any sense? Never mind, just dismiss it as socialist propaganda.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.