It is not clear to me what Sen. Marc Basnight had in mind with his proposed amendment of state insurance laws, but it is painfully clear that you missed the point entirely in your May 21 editorial "Rates and risks." North Carolina is so hostile to the notion of competition within the insurance industry that it permits government to make pricing decisions for companies rather than let the free market work as it does in every other line of business.
Perhaps it would help if you set forth your principles for applying price controls on insurers and then try those principles on auto dealers, grocery stores, appliance stores and even newspapers. After all, there are several hundred casualty insurers competing for business in North Carolina. If that is not enough to enable a free and competitive market to work efficiently, how do you justify your right to set your own price for the daily paper?
Basnight's amendment did not go far enough; he should have stripped the Rate Bureau of all power to set rates and allowed the casualty insurance companies to operate as freely as life insurers. A free market should be cherished, not despised.
James F. Perry
Pittsboro