Jonathan Goodish wrote:

On another note, anyone who lives near the ocean in a city that's 18
feet below sea level is living on borrowed time until the next disaster.
If businesses were refused insurance and government aid for disasters
such as this, and the poor were forced to work for a living, no one (or
very few) would live in areas like New Orleans because the financial
risk would be too great. Since the government swoops in to cover much
of the financial loss, there's less at risk for the individual, and
lives are needlessly lost.

The people still struggling to make repairs from hurricanes from the
past 3 years, ain't living off of a gov'nment teet. And lots of them are
50 miles or more from any coast... It took me over 5 months to have my
roof and fence replaced and that was with insurance and my own money.
Lots of people can't afford that luxury...