I was chuckling to myself this morning when I was getting ready for work this morning and saw a piece on television outlining that the next bailout recipient of TARP money is apparently going to be the life insurance industry. About a month ago, I was driving in the car, and on the conservative talk station I listen to, a commercial for one of the life insurance companies that advertise on the station came on. As they often do, this commercial was spouting off about how great these “return of premium” policies are, and I turned to my friend and said, “hmm… I wonder what’s going to happen when people start demanding their money back and it’s not there?”. So the idea that the insurance companies are seeking bailouts now was rather amusing to me - reason being, that’s exactly what they are now worried about - a run on the money that they don’t have if consumer concern rises when they realize how these companies do business.

You see, in theory, the insurance business should be relatively easy, not to mention stable. At risk of oversimplification: you sell policies, collect the premiums, hedge your bets and invest the remaining premium money, right? The idea is that when I take out a life insurance policy with, let’s say, MetLife, MetLife is making a bet. They’re betting that I will live for the term of the policy and that they can use my money paid in premiums to invest (hopefully conservatively) in a variety of financial instruments and make a profit, keeping a small chunk of the original premium aside to pay out the death benefit to those who are unfortunate and happen to die.

Well, unfortunately, all of these companies’ financial “health” are rated by agencies, and because these ratings rise and fall based on capital ratios that, in turn, rise and fall with the stock market, it doesn’t take a genius to see the writing on the wall here. As the stock market has tanked, so have the investments of companies like Hartford, Prudential, MetLife, Lincoln National, etc., and they are now facing a situation where they may not have enough money set aside to pay out their customers’ money if and when they want it back.

Fearing a run on the money by policyholders, the life insurance companies are now all lining up for a handout from the TARP funds, and I’m sure Turbotax Geithner will give it to them, seeing this as a perfect opportunity to take control of another US industry. Can you imagine the nightmare of the Federal Gub’mint insuring all life insurance policies? Horrifying. Why, you say?

Well, just imagine - if Nazi Pelosi and her Socialist “one-world economy” cronies at the Treasury and Federal Reserve can take control of the life insurance industry, it’s pretty easy to see two things happening rather quickly:

1) Immediate insolvency and bankruptcy of the entire insurance industry. If nothing else, the Feds have shown almost idiot-savant-like adeptness at squandering enormous reserves of our money on entitlement programs that they have no Constitutional authority to spend it on. They have raided the Social Security coffers for decades and we all know how that worked out. It’s all gone. Only a fool would think that anything different would happen with insurance premiums if the Federal government were to get it’s grubby little mitts on it - it will be squandered on creating ever-increasing entitlement programs in order to “keep the machine running” and continue to increase the size of an entire class of Americans who rely on the Federal government for their very existence.

2) The seizure of this industry (because that is what this is, plain and simple) would immediately enable Pelosi to start enacting a whole slew of social engineering legislation, using the insurance industry as leverage. Think I’m kidding? How long do you think it would be once the feds have control of the insurance industry before laws would be passed banning fatty foods, cola, you name it. A federal ban on trans-fats will be the first one, mark my words. If they have control over the money, they have control over who gets insurance and who does not, and they will have control over what behavior qualifies you or disqualifies you for a policy and what rates you will pay.

To say this is a slippery slope would be the understatement of the year, nay, the decade, but I’m sure this is the road we’re going down now. This issue needs to be brought into public light before it is too late. This administration is in the business of floating a lot of trial balloons with respect to legislative and policy decisions, and making decisions on how to proceed based on public reaction. Let’s pop this balloon before it gets off the ground, what do you say? Time for Americans to say “enough”.