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The only thing that operating across state lines actually accomplishes is enabling a race to the bottom. It means that whatever state manages to make their regu
by fooey 10y ago
The only thing that operating across state lines actually accomplishes is enabling a race to the bottom. It means that whatever state manages to make their regulations the most attractive to the insurance industry is the state that all the providers will "move" to, and that's the quality of insurance the rest of the nation gets stuck with.
For the most part, the insurance companies are huge, and they operate nationally already. There's really not any economies of scale that are going to produce direct savings. The savings come by slashing everyones coverage.
- virmundi 10y agoI'm invoking the commerce clause. So the States can only make more onerous regulations. You see this with California emission standards. The Federal government has a minimum and California say, "You got to do better." This prevents a race to the bottom.
- fooey 10y agoSeems to me, the GOP's entire point for letting insurers sell across state lines is precisely to force a state like California to allow substandard plans to be sold to their citizens
- virmundi 10y agoDepends on the Federal requirements. Something that's lost in this whole conversation is the idea of insurance. I have auto insurance because I could be hit. I've gone 15 years without being hit, at least not enough to make a claim. I keep it just in case. Going to the doctor for an annual physical is not something that should be insured. It's a known cost. You, as the individual, should pay that out of pocket, or get another extended coverage policy or rider to covert that. It's like my auto insurance paying for oil changes. As a result, our costs are too high.
- fooey 10y agoIf car insurance had to cover a 6+ figure operation replacing an old engine that was was seized up because of poor maintenance, it would make financial sense to cover oil changes as a preventative measure. A health disaster is several orders of magnitude more expensive than an automotive disaster, and you can't just total out a human being and pick up a new one at the local dealership if it's too expensive. Preventative maintenance is a money saver long term.
- pravda 10y ago"Annual physicals" in asymptomatic individuals are known to be a useless waste of money and time. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/re-thinking-the-annual-physical/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/re-thinking-the-annual-phys...
- gleb 10y agoBy that logic car insurance would cover brake service.
- drodgers 10y agoHuman error causes >90% of car crashes (https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/12/human-error-cause-vehicle-crashes https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/12/human-error-cause...), so brake maintenance is a very inefficient way to reduce insurance risk. Instead, insurers penalise people based on their history of crashes (or — more importantly to the insurers — claims). The market is actually working well in that case.
- troupe 10y agoLife insurance is sold across state lines. Do you feel it suffers from the same problem?
- ch4s3 10y agoIt's a totally different product.