I think what he means is that the people living on the flood plain want protection from risk at below the price it costs to provide that protection. The only way to do this is with taxpayer money.
No, the problem is that the insurance company can't average out this risk. Going without insurance is an all-or-nothing proposition - either you lose your house, or you lose nothing. By contrast, insurance companies average this out - they lose X% of houses each year, and charge enough to make a profit.
But insurance in a flood plain is different. The insurance company can't average out the risk - either they lose all of the houses they're insuring, or none of them. Thus, they can't provide any averaging benefit to the consumer - they have to charge an exorbitant amount to ensure they don't go bankrupt if the flood happens the year they open their doors.
The government _can_ handle this, because they are, in a sense, diversified across industries.
This is a straw man. The point of the article is health insurance, and no one chooses to break their leg, get burned in a fire, or develop cancer.
But I'll take you up on it anyway, because it's still BS. How about the people in tornado alley? Or hurricane alley? Or everyone in California with all those earthquakes? Or mudslides or forest fires or or or... can you tell me no one in your state/province/whatever has ever had a natural disaster destroy their home?
> The point of the article is health insurance, and no one chooses to break their leg, get burned in a fire, or develop cancer.
I'm not sure if you're kidding. People do indeed choose to go rock climbing, smoke in bed, and smoke, period. These things are statistically very related to choosing to have accidents and get cancer. One would expect that removing some financial costs of these activities would cause some increase in those participating.
You might say that you'd be fine with higher rates of accidents and cancer as long as the risk is spread, but it's not a straw man.
You think that if the thought of being burned over 90% of their body isn't stopping someone from smoking in bed... that the thought a big hospital bill will do the trick?
Or that they're not afraid of breaking every bone in their body when rock climbing, but boy, that doctor bill sure would be steep, so how about a nice game of cards? Seriously?
