Texas Pushing Dead Peasant Insurance For Teachers, School Workers

[hatrack]

Houston -- "Outraging the education community, Texas is considering allowing a large financial company to take out life insurance on retired teachers, cafeteria workers and bus drivers. The state would be the beneficiary of the policies, the company would make millions on the transaction and families of the retirees would get nothing.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, now an executive at UBS Investment Bank of New York, is promoting the proposal. State officials stressed that they are only considering the idea. But they pointed out that the plan could raise millions of dollars for the financially strapped Texas Teacher Retirement System, one of the largest public pensions in the nation, while the state would assume virtually no risk.

Many education workers, who learned about the concept after meetings between Gramm and top Texas officials, say the proposal is morbid and potentially a bad business deal. They say Texas effectively would wind up with a financial interest in the timely death of its retired education workers.

EDIT

UBS executives project that they could earn tens of millions of dollars on the Texas transaction. Sources close to Gramm say he has made it clear in meetings with state officials that he and his company view Texas as a pilot program. If the concept works out, UBS hopes to take the insurance program nationwide. Gramm, a Republican senator from Texas for 18 years who stepped down in 2002 and became a vice chairman of UBS, declined to comment for this story."

EDIT

[liberalnurse]

1. Another brick taken out of the foundation

of free public education.......Soon, it will collapse completely.

[Gin]

4. Walmart does this too...I wonder how many other organizations do this.

disgusting...and I could see some numbers of deaths increase to boost
the bottom line.

[GOPisEvil]

2. This is just sickening!

As an employee of the State of Texas, I'm appalled that this is even being considered. This is morbid and should be outlawed.

[HFishbine]

8. Just watch out

for cuts in your health care. Sounds like Texas may soon have a financial stake in your ill health.

[GOPisEvil]

10. LOL! That's already happened.

Our benefits get cut every time the economy goes into the tank. We employees are just too damned expensive. :eyes:

[Lars39]

14. Check your insurance benefits.

See if they can be cut if you are working below full-time(ie 40 down to 30). I think this is what's eventually going to happen to the cash-strapped states. Just employ a certain percentage at 30 hours and you don't have to pay for insurance. The Wal-mart way. :eyes:

[GOPisEvil]

16. They wouldn't waste their time...

...they'd go straight to the "reductions in force".

[liberalhistorian]

9. David, I've got to hand it to you,

I just don't know how you and elfwitch and all the other suffering oppressed living and working in Occupied Texas can stand it, you guys must have the patience and fortitude of Job! Living in Ohio's bad enough (people can't get out of here fast enough, and I wish I were in the position to join them!), I can't imagine having to deal with Texas.

[GOPisEvil]

11. After losing my Congressman (thanks to Tom &%&#$^& DeLay)

and realizing that my own party couldn't even round anyone up to run in my new district, I'm really coming close to just paking up and leaving, but my responsible side won't let me do that.

I thought about running in that district too, just to have ONE Democrat on the ballot, but I thought our former mayor might run. Plus, I'd have had to quit my job. I'd have gotten beaten like a drum, but I'm tired of the party in this state just laying down.

[liberalhistorian]

15. Dems in Ohio are just as

bad and wimpy. We used to be the dominant party, and have gone to being the quiet, wimpy, doormat tiny totally powerless minority in less than ten years. The repukes are getting worse and worse, too, SIGH.

[silverweb]

3. This should be illegal!

What a disgusting concept. It perpetuates the attitude that the employer "owns" the employee, instead if there being a contractual agreement.

NO ONE should have the right to take out a life insurance policy on another person without that person's full knowledge and consent (and making it a provisional requirement for employment doesn't count)!

[rocktivity]

5. WHY do the estates of the workers get nothing?

Why not give them a share of profits? And how can do this without the worker's permission? Are they going to start murdering the workers if they don't die fast enough?

rocknation

[NoMoreRedInk]

20. How much do the workers have to pay for this insurance?

I can't believe they are getting nothing.

[girl gone mad]

6. Phil Gramm.

God, I hated him.

[ixion]

7. I'm wondering why they think this is even legal

I'm not sure it is, but I'm reasonably sure that there is a clause somewhere about talking policies out on people who are not in your immediate family.

Applying this same logic, I could take out policies on retired celebrities, or whomever, and collect on that policy when they pass on. Now, please, someone tell me how the insurance companies would have no problem with this.

There is really something fundamentally disturbing that elected officials are even considering an idea like this.

[patmacsf]

22. Think of it this way ....

The "employer" here has a financial risk in "losing" employees and then being able to rehire qualified individuals to replace them. So, what they're insuring is the financial risk they suffer by the death of their employee, they're not insuring the employees life.

It is very morbid, but it makes a little business sense. See my post earlier though about the supposed win-win relationship between the state of Texas and USB.

[King Coal]

12. You need to read the small print,

It dead pheasant insurance for Cheney.

[King Coal]

13. You need to read the small print,

It dead pheasant insurance for Cheney.

[SoCalDem]

17. Looking at it from the flip side....

What if there was to be a class action suit .. something to the effect that by NOT providing full and proper healthcare, the state was actually encouraging untimeley deaths SO THAT THE STATE could collect money :(

[silverlib]

18. Now teachers in Texas pay with their lives?

...to bail out the Teachers' Retirement System? This is disgusting!

I hope this is the end of "Phil" in this state, but I doubt it. He has been promoting doing away with the minimum wage and other atrocities for years. I swear he looks and acts like Himmler's brother!

[0007]

19. Phil & Windy Gramm are the biggest man and wife scam artist

alive today and getting away with murder.

This proposal is as morbid as Phil and Windy being seen in church by the devil.

[patmacsf]

21. Huh? What about the premiums on this insurance?

What am I missing here? Supposedly the insurance company AND the beneficiary make money on this deal?!? That doesn't even make sense. In standard insurance, only one party can make money not both. Either the State ends up paying more in premiums than it ultimately collects in death benefits or the insurance company pays out more than it makes in premiums, not both.

If this isn't a joke, someone needs to focus on the trees for the forest and realize that the state and USB are lying if they really expect to both benefit from this type of arrangement!

[republicansareevil]

24. I think you nailed it.

It just doesn't make sense, does it? Something somewhere is screwed up.

[jmowreader]

25. Insurance is an investment scheme

You don't think the insurance company just buries the premiums in the back yard, do you?

How it works, in a nutshell:
You buy an insurance policy, which is a piece of paper saying that when event A happens, the insurance company will pay a certain amount of money so long as the premiums on the policy are current. In the case of straight life insurance, event A is the death of the person who was insured.

The insurance company then invests the premiums into something it can get out of quick if Event A happens. (In reality, with a large number of policyholders in its portfolio, an insurer will keep a balanced portfolio of easy-to-dump securities and long-term ones that pay higher returns.)

From someone like Wal-Mart's point of view, it's better for the peasants to die quickly so that they collect before they pay more than they'll receive. (This doesn't mean they'll do anything so blatant as failing to fix the brakes on the forklift, but working everyone 29 hours a week so they don't have to sponsor health insurance for them will accomplish the same end, and without that nasty lawsuit action to contend with.) The insurance company would prefer you lived a long time, as that helps them maximize their investment portfolio.

[loudsue]

23. I'm thinking a return to the Wild West might be appropriate...

I think Texans should start having duels in the streets at sunrise.

That's how they settled things in the days of old....and I'd like to see about 1 million Texans challenge Gramm, and the rest of the repukes, to a duel. The courts are just extensions of the republican party, so trying to get justice for the "people" is out of the question.

I don't know what we're going to do. This world is looking more like the twilight zone every day, and it baffles me that even more republicans aren't getting sick of it, too.

:kick: