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Published Sunday, June 13, 2010 in Local

Gubernatorial hopeful pushes transparency

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Gubernatorial candidate Eric Johnson and the wife of insurance commissioner candidate Ralph Hudgens were the featured speakers at Saturday's meeting of the Coweta County Republican Party.

Johnson, of Savannah, is an architect and the former speaker pro tem of the Georgia Senate.

Hudgens, of Athens, was elected to the Georgia House in 1996, and the Georgia Senate in 2002. For the past six years, he has been chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, said his wife, Suzanne.

Johnson, who has made several appearances in Coweta during his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor, gave a presentation and then took several questions from the audience.

Johnson was asked about what can be done to elect better people and to get corruption out of politics.

"You'll never get corruption out of politics," Johnson said.

The best way to combat it is to have "a system that is as transparent as possible" and to have values that are "as strong as possible," Johnson said. There needs to be strong law enforcement, and the power needs to be kept with the people. Georgia can also do a better job at the "political leadership level," Johnson said.

When Hudgens was approached by Senate leadership about the insurance chairmanship, he said, "'I don't know anything about insurance,'" Suzanne Hudgens said. "And they said that's what we want," she added.

So Hudgens, who has been a major insurance consumer with his various business, set out to learn about the insurance industry.

"I didn't want a banker over banking or an insurance man over insurance," said Johnson, who was in Senate leadership when the Republicans gained the majority. "We didn't want the fox guarding the henhouse."

Many people don't realize that only about 25 percent of the health insurance plans in Georgia are under the purview of the insurance commissioner's office, Suzanne Hudgens said. Most Georgians with insurance actually have self-insured plans that are federally regulated under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

All state and federal employees, as well as employees of many major companies, are in self-insured plans. They may pay premiums to an insurance company, but it is really only a third-party administrator who keeps the books, Hudgens said.

The bulk of the insurance commissioner's work is with other types of insurance. The insurance commissioner is also the state's safety fire commissioner.

Hudgens is a business man who has run a big business and "knows how to do it well," she said. Those businesses need a lot of insurance, too. The Hudgens spend around $100,000 per year on insurance premiums, she said.

Hudgens is supported by the insurance industry but is also very consumer-oriented, she said.

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