“Think of the federal government as a gigantic insurance company (with a sideline business in national defense and homeland security), which does its accounting on a cash basis, only counting premiums and payouts as they go in and out the door. An insurance company with cash accounting... is an accident waiting to happen.”

— Peter R. Fisher

While under secretary of the U.S. Treasury in 2002; frequently short-handed as "an insurance company with an army." A Fiscal Train Wreck, Paul, Krugman, Paul Krugman, March 11, 2003, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/opinion/a-fiscal-train-wreck.html, <br class="br"> How government is like insurance, June 28, 2011, Thomas F., Schaller, Baltimore Sun http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-06-28/news/bs-ed-schaller-20110628_1_unemployment-insurance-premiums-government-insurance, <br class="br"> Who First Said the US is 'An Insurance Company with an Army'?, Economist's View, Mark, Thoma, January 17, 2013 http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2013/01/who-first-said-the-us-is-an-insurance-company-with-an-army.html,

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Peter R. Fisher1

American treasury official 1956

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

As quoted in Humanscape : Environments for People (1987), by Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, p. 97

“The only way you’re going to pay for it is not by saddling business. All you do by forcing business to pay for health care or passing a law telling people they have to go buy insurance, which is a subsidy for the insurance companies, all these plans are going backwards.”

Mike Gravel (1930–2021) American politician; United States Senator

Huffington post Mash-up: 2007 Democratic Online Debate
Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mashup-transcript-mike-gr_n_64318

“Look, it was an accident. Five thousand accidents happen every day -- bizarre, tragic, farcical… they're Acts of God fit only to amaze the survivors and irritate the Insurance Company…”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

A Zed and Two Noughts

“"Value added" is a meaningless concept for a retail business, for a bank, for a life insurance company, and for any other business which is not primarily engaged in manufacturing.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 3, p. 647

“We will force those cash calls out into the modified carrier arrangement and we will release that money back into the federation account. That's where the fiscal buffer sits.”

Kemi Adeosun (1967) Nigerian accountant, investment banker and politician (born 1967)

“There are only two things as complicated as insurance accounting and I have no idea what they are.”

Andrew Tobias (1947) American journalist

Source: The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know (1982), Chapter 2, By Popular Demand: A very Short Chapter On Insurance Accounting, p. 26.

“There are information asymmetries in this story. Health insurance is limping along. It's limited in scope, and then you other consequences. Insurance companies have high premiums to protect themselves. The ones who come to the insurance company are sicker and the people have to pay more. You have adverse selection. You have moral hazard. And the doctor does what's on the safe side -- defensive medicine -- without regard to cost. These are fundamental conditions that make health insurance difficult. You have some things that help. Some doctors understand that they shouldn't abuse the system. But you still see problems in the way doctors behave towards patients. They goof off. Sometimes it's too much work. Some things are difficult and risky to diagnose.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

quoted in Conor Clarke, An Interview with Kenneth Arrow, Part Two https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/07/an-interview-with-kenneth-arrow-part-two/22279/ (2009) <br class="br">New millennium

“Having all the cash suddenly siphoned out of a company is like draining all the blood from the body.”

Robert Kuok (1923) Malaysian businessman

Cap 1 "Moulded by Mother"

“I really have some luggage in my head. If only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things here, there's a bale I should insure at once.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

J'ai vraiment, un vrai bagage dans la tête. S'il y avait pour cela, comme il y a partout ici, des compagnies d'assurance, voilà un ballot je ferais assurer de suite.
Quote from a letter to James Tissot, (New Orleans, 1873), as cited in Marilyn Brown, Degas and the Business of Art: A Cotton Office in New Orleans (Penn State Press, 1994)
1855 - 1875

“$400 million in all cash, anybody know what that looks like? That's a lot of cash. That's a lot of case. And honestly, it's so sad. Think of it, going to Iran, a terrorist state. Now I happen to think they have plenty of money, we've given then $150 billion, so the $400 million is just, you know – I happen to think it goes into their accounts in Switzerland personally. Now, a lot of people say, "no, no, it's used for terror," and they use it for terror because it's the number one terror funder – not even close. But I also think that when you have $400 million in cash, different denominations, do you see the size of this? I guess they did release the pictures after all. They released pictures. … Obama said that he did it because we don't have a working account with Iran. Do you believe that? How long does it take to set up an account? Right? You don't have a working account, you set up an account, right?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

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Peter R. Fisher1

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