Over at The Undercurrent, Paul Hsieh has a good column about the high cost of benefit mandates that states—and now the feds—impose on health insurance carriers:
State regulators currently require health insurers to include numerous “mandatory benefits,” whether customers wish to purchase them or not. The exact mandatory benefits vary from state to state, but might include services such as acupuncture, in vitro fertilization, and autism therapy.
This idiocy is pervasive:
Altogether, the 50 states require insurers to provide nearly 2000 benefits, typically driven by special-interest lobbyists exerting political “pull.” This would be the equivalent of the broccoli farming lobby’s forcing restaurants to include broccoli in all meals sold, even if most customers don’t want any.
And it is expensive:
According to the Manhattan Institute, such regulations in New York have increased the costs of health insurance there by 42%. Furthermore, 37% of uninsured New York residents would be able to afford coverage were it not those expensive mandates.
Usually, when an government imposes benefit mandates, it is at the behest of some special interest. This is no different. Read the rest of Dr. Hsieh’s column here.
When you’re done, check out Hsieh’s blog at FIRM. Lots of good information for people who want actual facts about the state of health care.
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