Buy health insurance across State lines,

[yortsed snacilbuper]

where have I heard that before

[cheapdate]

1. You already can if your state insurance laws

allow it. I suppose they mean they want a federal law to preempt state insurance commissions and state's ability to regulate and oversee insurance within their borders.

Seems like it would make it hard for consumers to appeal anything. The state with the shittiest laws would become the defacto standard.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

3. "The state with the shittiest laws would become the defacto standard."

That's the plan!

[flamingdem]

4. yup

[Hoyt]

2. I don't think that will accomplish anything but a lot of folks getting insurance that goes bankrupt.

We'll deplete guarantee funds and have a big mess. Heck, companies like United Healthcare pretty much operate across state lines with subsidiaries in each state where they operate. The whole idea us right wing garbage.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

7. The FIO would need to be grown into something bigger and more muscular that what's there now

If insurance is to be sold across state lines, then there needs to be a capable federal regulator. I think even the insurance industry would concede that.

Operating across state lines allows for creation of a larger risk pool, which (in theory) is always a safer bet. And, it would create economies of scale, so if the requirement remained that 80% (or is it 85?) of premium has to be spent on patient care, then it should (again, in theory) produce lower costs with more stabilized outlays.

My theory is that I'd be fine with one or two large companies basically taking the market, but the condition for the grand bargain would be that the companies would be regulated like utilities used to be -- rates would have to be approved and profits would be guaranteed, but at a very modest level. Basically, enough to money to attract bright, capable people to manage the enterprise,, but not enough to be paying 7 or 8 figure bonuses to execs.

IIRC, Germany essentially has an arrangement like this -- a big quasi-private company runs the healthcare system under strict regulation.

[bemildred]

5. I want to get health insurance free from the state.

So I wouldn't need to cross any lines.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

6. There is no free lunch (or healthcare)

Many Canadians and commentators in other countries lauding Canada's government-dominated approach to health care refer to Canadian health care as "free." If health care actually were free, the relatively poor performance of the health care system might not seem all that bad. But the reality is that the Canadian health care system is not free -- in fact, Canadian families pay heavily for healthcare through the tax system. That high price paints the long wait times and lack of medical technologies in Canada in a very different light.

In 2013, a typical Canadian family of four can expect to pay $11,320 for public health care insurance. For the average family of two parents with one child that bill will be $10,989, and for the average family of two adults (without children) the bill comes to $11,381. As a result of lower average incomes and differences in taxation, the bills are smaller for the average unattached individual ($3,780), for the average one-parent-one-child family ($3,905), and the average one-parent two-child family ($3,387). But no matter the family type, the bill is not small, much less free.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/nadeem-esmail/canada-free-health-care_b_3733080.html

[bemildred]

9. Right, but it is easily regulated to work well and at a good price.

While all paid for by the businesses and corporations that benefit from all those healthy workers and the opportunity to market their products that those healthy, well-paid workers provide.

There are many examples of that now.

[Vinca]

8. I've always thought that was a totally ridiculous "cure" for the problem.

The insurance companies would just go for the big con rather than the little, state-by-state con.