And what has been the result?
...[O]nly five states--Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont--have Mr. Obama's proposal for "guaranteed issue" on the books today. New Hampshire and Kentucky repealed such laws after finding that they soon had an even smaller individual insurance market as companies fled the state.The WSJ concludes:
Another proposed reform known as "community rating" imposes uniform premiums regardless of health condition. This also blows up the individual insurance market, by making it far more expensive for young, healthy or low-risk consumers to join pools--if they join at all. And if the healthy don't join risk pools, then premiums go up for everyone and insurers have little choice but to reduce their risk by refusing to cover those who have a high chance of getting sick, such as people with a history of cancer. This is why 35 states today impose no limits whatsoever on how much insurers can vary premiums and six states allow wide variation among consumers.
New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have both community rating and guaranteed issue. And, no surprise, they have the three most expensive individual insurance markets among all 50 states, with premiums roughly two to three times higher than the rest of the country. In 2007, the average annual premium in New Jersey was $5,326 for singles and in New York $12,254 for a family, versus the national average of $2,613 and $5,799, respectively. ObamaCare would impose New York-type rates nationwide.
ObamaCare would impose on all 50 states rules that have already proven to be failures in numerous states. Because these mandates would raise the cost of insurance, ObamaCare would then turn around and subsidize individuals to buy the insurance that the politicians made more expensive. Only in government could such irrationality be sold as "reform."Will our politicians learn from their mistakes? Or will they repeat them?
