Rick Perry Sought State Profits From Teacher Life Insurance Scheme

[chillspike]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- Two weeks before Thanksgiving in 2003, top officials from Texas Governor Rick Perry's office pitched an unusual offer to the state's retired teachers: Let's get into the death business.

Perry's budget director, Mike Morrissey, laid out a pitch that was both ambitious and risky, according to notes summarizing the meeting provided to The Huffington Post.

According to the notes, which were authenticated by a meeting participant, the Perry administration wanted to help Wall Street investors gamble on how long retired Texas teachers would live. Perry was promising the state big money in exchange for helping Swiss banking giant UBS set up a business of teacher death speculation.

All they had to do was convince retirees to let UBS buy life insurance policies on them. When the retirees died, those policies would pay out benefits to Wall Street speculators, and the state, supposedly, would get paid for arranging the bets. The families of the deceased former teachers would get nothing.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/rick-perry-texas-life-insurance-scheme_n_935666.html

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I believe this story is being broken by The Huffington Post, so those who hate HP will either want to hit to back button or to bear it a bit to get the info.

[onehandle]

1. Pathetic scumbag. nt

[chillspike]

3. I hope this finishes him (nt)

[onehandle]

4. It will give him a x% bump in teabagger circles. Teachers are Satan to these creeps. nt

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Recycling of Walmart's "Dead Peasants' Insurance".

In 1993, Wal-Mart adopted a corporate owned life insurance (“COLI”) program through which the company would purchase life insurance policies for its employees. Wal-Mart funded the policies, at no cost to the employees. The policies provided benefits of $5,000 to $10,000 to the decedents’ beneficiaries, with the remainder of the policy amount paid to Wal-Mart. By 2000, as the result of new regulations, Wal-Mart had discontinued the COLI program.

http://www.wvbusinesslitigationblog.com/2009/10/articles/corporations/walmarts-dead-peasant-insurance-policies-are-focus-of-proposed-class-action/

[Demit]

5. dead peasant insurance policies

State laws generally frowned on big Wall Street investment banks taking out life insurance on random individuals. To buy life insurance on another person, the insuree's written consent was necessary, as was the cooperation of a state insurance regulator willing to work around requirements that the owner of an insurance policy have an "insurable interest" in whatever -- or whomever -- was being insured.

Montemayor, as Texas' insurance commissioner, was quite willing to do that.

This is a hell of a story.

[im1013]

6. Typical GOP P.O.S.

:puke:

[SpiralHawk]

7. Republicon Family Cesspool Values (R)

What boot-licking scuzzbuckets Republicons are...as they demonstrate over and over and over...

[LiberalFighter]

8. Why isn't this illegal?

[chillspike]

10. I think it's not illegal b/c they would be getting the signatures

of the retirees. But it's scuzy as all he'll. Plus it's contrary to Perry's pronouncements of less governmental interference. And maybe there is some illegality in there somewhere, as well. It sure smells bad.

[LiberalFighter]

18. Maybe they got their signatures...

but did they inform the retirees what would happen?

[yellowcanine]

13. Actually it may be. It would have required a "waiver" from the state insurance regulators.

Why am I not surprised that Phil Graham is in the middle of all this?

[MichiganVote]

9. K&R

[yellowcanine]

11. Wait a minute - The entity paying for retiree health care benefited from life insurance payouts.

Did no one see the obvious problem with such an arrangement?

[yellowcanine]

12. Perry needs to be asked about this again and again. Teachers all over the U.S. need to hear about

this.

[skip fox]

14. Plese send links with stories like this to

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x754670

So we can build a good resource for investigation and publicity.

I will add the link where appropriate (I already snagged this story) and give you credit.

Updates in tomorrow's (weekend) edition.

[chillspike]

15. Okay..thank you. :)

[alp227]

16. great...another Republican criminal vying for the White House

We've had enough GOP corruption with George "War Criminal" Bush. We don't need Robber Rick Perry. Support Obama and Democratic Congressional candidates in 2012! And speaking of the huffington post, many may dislike the site for having human interest and entertainment stories and pseudoscience writers. However the site publishes many great liberal commentators including TYT's Cenk Uygur.

[Auntie Bush]

17. I'm sorry but this is hard to believe! Why would any teacher fall for this BS

and why would any teacher let UBS buy life insurance policies on them?
Or maybe I just understand his scheme. :shrug:

[Glimmer of Hope]

19. They targeted the elderly.

"The notes make clear that the governor's proposal deliberately targeted the elderly. The state was only seeking to take out life insurance on people between the ages of 75 and 90"

It is difficult to understand something so disgusting.