From the "Business as Usual" File

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, participating in a CBS4Boston town meeting webcast, was asked...

What will you do to allow competition among car insurance companies?

With the predictability of the sunrise, The Devaluator's response was ripped right from the pages of the Massachusetts Manifesto.

There's a policy judgment that we made when we put the current insurance framework in place which I support, and that is an evening out, if you will, as to the rates paid by people who live in the cities, people who live in the suburbs, people who are newer drivers vs. older drivers, to make the peaks and valleys, the differentials, less extreme. That to me seems right.

That to me seems like meddlesome governmental control of private enterprise, forced redistribution of personal wealth, and the stifling of the free market economy, in strict adherence to socialist doctrine, but what do I know?

And, oh yeah, in case you missed it earlier...

Boston Globe: Car insurers helped fund Patrick inaugural

Almost half of the most generous donors to Governor-elect Deval Patrick's inaugural next week are major auto insurers whose business could be greatly affected by Patrick's actions on efforts to reform the state's highly regulated industry.

Four of Patrick's nine leading contributors -- Arbella Insurance Group, the Commerce Group, the Hanover Insurance Group, and Liberty Mutual Group -- have a significant stake in whether Massachusetts shifts to a less-regulated system, which opponents say would discriminate against certain drivers, but which supporters say would give consumers more competition.

Shocking, indeed.

And, only in Massachusetts would allowing insurance companies to set their rates based on risk assessment be considered "discriminatory".