To answer the OP's question- should this trend grow legs and impact more areas/expand to other insurance providers I wouldn't at all be surprised (especially if the current administration gets a 2nd term) for the government to respond with them having and being the solution and getting into the insurance game guaranteeing coverage for the economically disadvantaged homeowners.
Should that prediction come to fruition, the way I see it playing out is as follows- First there will be an exuberant media campaign where all the major news companies smear the "evil" insurance providers for being greedy and using "predatory" business practices that disproportionately impacts minorities and is all manners of adjectives that we're accustomed to such as racist, transphobic, sexist, etc. For weeks if not months this will be the leading story on all the MSM channels.
After a set amount of time, there will be a news conference hosted by the president with a speech focused on chastising Congress's inability to take action to "protect" it's people and as such they're creating a new government agency tasked with providing homeowners insurance that is Federally insured through an executive order. Of course there'll be a group of figureheads behind the president applauding this decision of taking divisive action and getting more face time in the media.
They'll also announce the new head of the newly formed Department of 'Whatever'. It'll likely be somebody with some name recognition, more likely than not a former governor or CEO aligned with the administration's politics. After the announcement the MSM will then switch gears talking about the virtues of the decision/executive action and gushing over how great of a choice the newly appointed department head was and of course sprinkling in regular reminders of the evil insurance companies.
Untold millions if not billions of dollars will be spent creating this new Department and all of the stuff that goes with it. They'll eventually push for more 'regulation' of the insurance companies as the result of their inevitable braintrust and will 'fund' it by the 'non-disadvantaged' groups by being forced to carry coverage that they don't deem necessary. In turn, the premiums will go up for all those with current policies and the 'disadvantaged' will get cheap if not free coverage guaranteed by the Federal government while those subsidizing it will pay significantly more for a now-garbage policy.
The MSM will then leverage the griping of people that saw their costs go up and coverage go down significantly and start a new campaign labeling those that are unhappy as racists, transphobic, sexist, whatever. The political platform will continue to pat themselves on the back on how great they are and never miss an opportunity to bring it up on how they took care of the 'little man'. And after all is said and done, we'll have a larger federal government, higher taxes, more expensive premiums with lesser coverage, another increase in the Federal deficit, and what we'll have to show for it is constant media reminders on how great this was for us and reassuring us that the government solved all of our problems.
I don't know if I missed anything and truly hope that my tinfoil hat is on a few sizes too small but that's how I see it unfolding to the question of 'what are people with mortgages going to do'.
-LD
www.dailymail.co.uk
