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From Examiner.com
It’s funny how conservative someone is until they become a lobbyist! Then unfortunately, they become like all the other parasites scrambling to feed at the public trough! Read more…
Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, an early McCain backer and co-chairman of the National Catholics for McCain Committee, is another strong contender. He was associate attorney general in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, following service as an FBI agent and prosecutor. Keating is now head of the American Council of Life Insurers, but he is not dismissing interest. “I have always had a special affection for the Justice Department,” he said in an interview. His experience handling the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing would also suggest the Department of Homeland Security as a potential destination. Read more…
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the Rush Limbaugh Show today discussing Sen. McCain’s possible VP picks: (via My Take blog)
“He may throw the long ball and pick somebody like a Frank Keating, somebody that hadn’t even been talked about because everybody’s focused on a handful of names and, you know, McCain just might shock the daylights out of all of us.”
Fresh off trying to take stop senior citizens from making a few bucks off their life insurance policies in order to pad Big Insurance’s billion dollar profits, former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating is seeking the spotlight again.
We’d like to interview Keating, a Chesapeake Board of Directors member. We’d ask him: “Are you proud of the attempt by your industry to try and rip-off old people?” Or how about: “How embarrassed do you feel about Tom Price’s screw-ups?” Or how about this one on behalf of Oklahoma conservatives: “How can we miss you if you won’t go away?”
From HPR Online: Former Okla. Gov. on choosing a VP and managing a crisis By Sam Barr
Word is that Mike Turpen will emcee the Oklahoma Academy Salute on August 22nd in Tulsa along with Frank Keating. But don’t write the evening off just yet, although the snooze factor will be high considering who will be at the podium, The Capitol Steps will be in the house making for a truly entertaining evening!
| Surgeon General’s Warning: The Capitol Steps will cause your sides to split. -C. Everett Koop, 1/6/89 |
It looks like insurance mandates and ‘insurance companies behaving badly’ issues will remain on the front burner in what could be the last week of the legislative session.
Already this session we exposed a plan by greedy life insurance companies to screw old people and charities out of the freedom to sell their life policies in arrangements called “life settlements.” After further media exposure, the life companies and their lobbyist Frank Keating were forced to remove many of the more outrageous aspects of the bill, such as turning senior citizens into felons if they did not receive 50% of the face value of the policy. A ‘trailer’ bill is in the works that would remove the last outrageous aspect: Kim Holland, the toady insurance commissioner owned by Keating’s association. Current statutes would allow Holland to harass companies that buy the policies from seniors to such an extent that few would want to do business in Oklahoma. Even Democrats know the commissioner needs to be put into a position where she can do no harm as they regard her as “intellectually-challenged” on most insurance issues, so a trailer bill stands a good chance at passing.
We’ll keep watching this one.
And the Oklahoman is attempting a last minute feeble effort to rescue Rep. Ron Peterson as his clumsy handling of the insurance mandates for autism treatments keeps the issue alive for yet another week. Peterson also was an advocate of the shameful anti-senior life settlement bill. Yesterday, the increasingly irrelevant paper slams Sen. J. Paul Gumm, who is for the mandates but has outflanked and out-maneuvered Peterson from the beginning. As Jim Bowie is aid to have told Col. Travis at the Alamo, “It’s not what you say Travis that bothers me, it’s how you say it.”
Communicating public issues as often more important than the issue itself, something Peterson and the paper need to improve: did you catch the strange reference to global warming? Regardless, insurance issues appear to be ready to explode into the news yet again this week, meaning the press corps will screw it up, so we’ll be cleaning up that mess. Stay tuned!
“Grabbin’ the Ankles”
Capitol observers are reporting some positive modifications in the effort to defeat the SCREW-ing Old People and Charities Act.
The bill, which is headed for conference, was ostensibly an effort by Big Insurance to eliminate so-called Stranger Originated Life Insurance (STOLI) scams, but was actually a back-door way to eliminate ‘life settlements,” an investing tool that gives Oklahoma Seniors and charitable institutions options for estate planning purposes. Big Insurance wants to eliminate ‘life settlements’ in order to pad their obscene profit margins. The bill, authored in the House of Representative by embattled insurance committee chair Ron Peterson, was on a rocket sled to the governor until the OKPNS story and some subsequent stories by other Oklahoma media pulled the covers off the scam. While Big Insurance has lost the element of surprise, many of the onerous items in the bill remain.
Sources say that the Senate, under pressure to fix some of the more outrageous aspects of the SCREW job, have agreed to fix some of the provisions that dictated just how much senior citizens had to receive for their policies lest they face felony charges.
One item that insiders say must be fixed is the power Oklahoma’s incompetent Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland has over such policies. Right now Holland, a toady for Big Insurance, has far too much discretion over the types of companies who would buy life settlements, and could be a backdoor way to stop the life settlement business even if the bad provisions are removed through legislative action. “Holland, who is every bit as big a tool for Big Insurance as Peterson, but far less knowledgeable, could harass and badger companies who want to do life settlement business in Oklahoma, providing yet another way for Big Insurance to prevail, so nothing is fixed just yet,” one observer says.
McCain Fundraiser. April 25th 2008
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2f_t57upSU&hl=en]
UPDATE:
Oklahoman Editorial: Turning treasures into trash
Originally Posted 4/22/08
As rank-and-file Republicans look on in amazement, yet another corporate welfare scheme is advancing through the Oklahoma House of Representatives, once again being pushed by the Republican leadership.
Despite some negative media attention last week, Big SCREW (Selfish Companies Reaping Excessive Windfalls) remains on general order this week in the house. State Rep. Ron Peterson, already in hot water with the public over his awkward handling of an autism-related insurance matter, is pushing hard for SB 1980, a Trojan horse bill that purports to eliminate so-called Stranger Originated Life Insurance (STOLI) scams, but according to knowledgeable observers is actually a back-door way to eliminate ‘life settlements,” an investing tool that gives Oklahoma Seniors and charitable institutions options for estate planning purposes.
Ironically, the STOLI bill, which purports to stop one type of scam, is a swindle
itself. “There is no STOLI problem in Oklahoma,” another insider tells OKPNS. “Over 60% of life insurance policies lapse, so this is just a way to keep from paying claims. It will hurt senior citizens and Oklahoma charities, and the backers of this fraud should be ashamed, VERY ashamed. If they want to stop STOLI, a short amendment would suffice. It wouldn’t take a massive esoteric bill to end STOLI, but let’s be real: stopping STOLI is not what this is all about,” she says. Regular OKPNS readers will recognize the gang that is advancing the Big SCREW. The primary proponent is the American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI) in Washington, headed by former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating. Keating, also a member of the Chesapeake Energy Board of Directors, has hired the Fried lobbying bunch to pull the wool over legislators’ eyes. Also lobbying hard for the bill is the insurance industry’s toady, insurance commissioner Kim Holland, and the Senate author Sean Burrage.
Under the pretext of ending STOLI, the 88-page bill includes cynical clauses, including on that mandates that life insurance policy holders cannot receive less than 50% of the face value of the policy, which effectively kills the practice. Life settlements enable financially-strapped seniors to realize some yield from their investments if they are sick or in need of some financial assistance. Further, seniors who violate that aspect of the bill will be guilty of a FELONY, an excessive and immoral element. The bill is especially ironic when considering that Ronald Reagan is believed to have sold some policies in his last years.
Under SB 1980, “Big Insurance” wins, and Oklahoma seniors and charities lose. This bill will seriously and dramatically affect those citizens who buy life insurance policies for estate planning purposes and negatively affect the net worth of Oklahoma seniors. It is a scandalous bill rooted in the desire of Big Insurance to take every last nickel from their policy holders, regardless of morals and fairness. This bill would have jailed Ronald Reagan, and at some point people will find out what has happened, and for legislators who support this abomination, it could be THE campaign issue of the year.
From The Hill’s Congress Blog:
Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R), president of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), says Treasury Secretary Paulson’s regulatory proposals for life insurers would save consumers $5.7 billion per year.
