Should We Blindly Bail Out Natural Disaster Victims?

[eliza61nyc]

Originally Posted by 17thAndK

Should other policy-holders be forced to pay because while arguing with your wife, you managed to back the car into a light-post in the parking lot?

actually thats how insurance works. in a nutshell, insurance collects money from a lot of people to cover the cost of a few.

they trouble begins in disasters like this when you now have tens of thousands of people draining the insurance coffers. many companies stopped offering flood insurance in certain places.

[Forgiven1sun]

I think it's case by case I do not think Houston's knew they were in flood zone or would get four feet of rain.

But if you live in a flood zone in Florida you have a due diligence to protect yourself and will face consequences.

I did not research but I do not think a lot of Houston was in flood zone.

[Rambler123]

I don't see any logical alternative to "bailing" them out.

Yes, you can shut down some corner cases, like a huge casino that gets wrecked by a hurricane after doing countless stupid and illegal things for years that set them up to fail, but punishing average citizens who get hosed by nature because: their government was dumb, big business is greedy and dumb, the homebuilders were lazy, etc. - that just doesn't make sense and is cruel.

Finally, there's also the brutal reality that no matter where you live or how "clever" you may think you are, terrible things can happen to anyone and wipe them out. It's a hallmark of right-wing extremist values to assume that "bad things only happen to people who deserve it, so we shouldn't help them" - that's a stupid, cruel, and easily disproven viewpoint straight out of the Dark Ages that has no place in modern civilized society.