Re-elect Dave Jones as California insurance commissioner: Endorsement

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who is running for re-election, is pictured in a 2013 file photo. (Associated Press) 

California’s insurance commissioner has great potential to do good things for consumers and the insurance industry itself through regulation, investigation and the bully-pulpit power to influence legislation.
Dave Jones gets this. The incumbent discusses insurance laws with enthusiasm rarely associated with this arcane subject. When he met with the Los Angeles News Group editorial board recently, he extolled “rate transparency” with oratorical verve and hand gestures reminiscent of John F. Kennedy talking about what you can do for your country.


Jones has made the most of his first four years as insurance commissioner and should be elected to a second term.
Challenger Ted Gaines, a personable state senator whose family is in the insurance business, wouldn’t offer what Californians want and need from the head of the Department of Insurance. The Republican from Redding thinks the department has become a “hostile bureaucracy.” He would trim regulation and bank on competition among insurance companies to control rates.
Gaines even opposed Proposition 103, the 1988 ballot initiative that made insurance commissioner an elected position and let the office regulate auto and home insurance. Gaines also opposes the Affordable Care Act, despite California’s support of the federal health-insurance reform law and success at implementing it.


Jones, a Democratic former assemblyman from Sacramento, has been an effective leader for the state’s largest consumer protection agency. His office claims more than $1.4 billion in consumer savings via rate regulation. He has fought gender discrimination and required coverage of autism treatment, forced companies to track down and pay life-insurance beneficiaries, and probed the insurance industry’s responses to climate change.
We disagree with Jones on one significant point. He favors Prop. 45, which would empower the commissioner to deny excessive health insurance rates. We urge a “no” vote; there are two many questions about whether this would interfere with — rather than supplement — the state health-insurance exchange’s rate negotiations.

Advertisement

But whether or not Prop. 45 passes, Californians will be better off with an insurance commissioner who embraces his regulatory role as Dave Jones does.
Vote for Jones on Nov. 4.