Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Banking Insurance Reform
[NOTE FROM MARNIE: THIS ONE IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO UPDATE]
SECTION TITLE: BANKING AND INSURANCE REFORM
SECTION SUBTITLE: ???
OUR POSITION: ONE SENTENCE.
The Green Party supports a broad program of reform in the banking, and the savings and loan industries that acts to ensure their commonwealth obligations to all communities. Since lending institutions are chartered by the state to serve the best interests of communities, the privileges that come with power at the center of commerce carry special social responsibilities.
GREEN SOLUTIONS
1. The government should ensure that low- and moderate-income persons and communities, as well as small businesses, have access to banking services, affordable loans, and small-business supporting capital. Loans should be made available to small business at rates competitive to those offered big business. We support disclosure laws, anti-redlining laws, and a general openness on the part of the private sector regarding criteria used in making lending decisions. We oppose arbitrary or discriminatory practices that deny small business access to credit.
2. We oppose disinvestment practices, in which lending and financial institutions move money deposited in local communities out of those same communities, damaging the best interests of their customers and community. We support the extension of the Community Reinvestment Act and its key performance data provisions to provide public and timely information on the extent of housing loans, small business loans to minority-owned enterprises, investments in community development projects, and affordable housing.
3. We believe Congress should act to charter community development banks, which would be capitalized with public funds and work to meet the credit needs of local communities.
4. Insurance industry regulation is essential to reduce the cost of insurance by reducing
* special-interest protections; * collusion and over-pricing, and; * excessive industry-wide practices that too often injure the interests of the insured when they are most vulnerable.
We must prohibit bad-faith insurance practices, such as avoidance of obligations and price fixing.
5. We support federal laws that act to make policies transportable from job to job and seek to prevent insurance companies’ rejecting applicants because of prior conditions. This is a move in the right direction but in no way addresses the scope of the problem, whether in health insurance, life insurance, business, liability, auto, or crop insurance.
6. We support initiatives in secondary insurance markets that work to expand
* credit for economic development in inner cities; * affordable housing and home ownership among the poor; * transitional farming to sustainable agriculture, and; * for rural development maintaining family farms.
7. We oppose insurance laws that permit a company to own insurance on its employees.
2004 PLATFORM ON BANKING AND INSURANCE REFORM
The Green Party supports a broad program of reform in the banking, and the savings and loan industries that acts to ensure their commonwealth obligations to all communities. Since lending institutions are chartered by the state to serve the best interests of communities, the privileges that come with power at the center of commerce carry special social responsibilities.
1. The government should ensure that low- and moderate-income persons and communities, as well as small businesses, have access to banking services, affordable loans, and small-business supporting capital. Loans should be made available to small business at rates competitive to those offered big business. We support disclosure laws, anti-redlining laws, and a general openness on the part of the private sector regarding criteria used in making lending decisions. We oppose arbitrary or discriminatory practices that deny small business access to credit.
2. We oppose disinvestment practices, in which lending and financial institutions move money deposited in local communities out of those same communities, damaging the best interests of their customers and community. We support the extension of the Community Reinvestment Act and its key performance data provisions to provide public and timely information on the extent of housing loans, small business loans to minority-owned enterprises, investments in community development projects, and affordable housing.
3. We believe Congress should act to charter community development banks, which would be capitalized with public funds and work to meet the credit needs of local communities.
4. Insurance industry regulation is essential to reduce the cost of insurance by reducing
* special-interest protections; * collusion and over-pricing, and; * excessive industry-wide practices that too often injure the interests of the insured when they are most vulnerable.
We must prohibit bad-faith insurance practices, such as avoidance of obligations and price fixing.
5. We support federal laws that act to make policies transportable from job to job and seek to prevent insurance companies’ rejecting applicants because of prior conditions. This is a move in the right direction but in no way addresses the scope of the problem, whether in health insurance, life insurance, business, liability, auto, or crop insurance.
6. We support initiatives in secondary insurance markets that work to expand
* credit for economic development in inner cities; * affordable housing and home ownership among the poor; * transitional farming to sustainable agriculture, and; * for rural development maintaining family farms.
7. We oppose insurance laws that permit a company to own insurance on its employees.
