Stephen Colbert on Romney’s pledge to abolish FEMA (video)

That’s what we did with BP and their oil spill.

Really though, disaster management addresses infrastructure and basic emergency relief, like temporary shelter and food, but in the long run, the average family is going to be entirely reliant on their insurance provider to compensate them for their losses. So in a way, we already do privatize disasters. There is a reason why most homeowners insurance policies do not include flood damage, or earthquake damage, or mudslide damage, or tornado damage, and you have to buy separate policies for those kinds of things. 

How many people affected by what is termed a “hundred year flood” do you think have enough insurance coverage to actually fully return themselves to the situation they were in before pretty much everything they owned was destroyed? Most of those people will be lucky if they see a fraction of their previous economic value return. Even the people that do have decent insurance coverage will be lucky to milk it out of their insurance company, which will fight paying out every single claim tooth and nail… and everybody in their area, if not all of the insurance company’s customers, will most likely see  dramatic hikes in their premiums immediately following. Many may not even see any kind of return from their insurance company for years, until all the red tape gets processed.