Archive for the ‘regulation’ Category

Legalize organ trading

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Our government prohibits the sale of human organs, which has resulted in a shortage.  Drew Carey's video shows the awful consequences of this: Not all government officials are as closed-minded to freedom on organ sales.  For example, as Bryan Caplan notes, the Health Minister of Singapore said that: "We should not ...

“We now offer insurance…but we’re laying you off.”

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Supporters of the union-sponsored Colorado Ballot Initiative 92 ("Employer Responsibility for Health Insurance") want to make it a crime for employers of 20 or more people not to offer them health insurance.   When government forces employers to buy you insurance, employers respond by paying you less.  This can put minorities and women ...

Make ‘em argue honestly for community rating

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Summary: Community rating (CR) forbids insurance companies from risk-rating their premiums.  Say someone supports this because it supposedly helps make insurance more affordable and accessible to higher-risk consumers.  You could counter this with empirical evidence that it's not effective.  But more effective is to expose CR as a stealth method to force ...

ADA against affordable dental care?

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Last week Reason.com published an article showing how the American Dental Association supports legislation that prohibits dental hygenists from providing low-cost dental care.  Is it out of concern for quality, or are the denists trying to use government licensing requirements to stamp out competition, which in turn makes dental care ...

Mandated benefits inflate Mass. insurance premiums

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

From Tuesday's Boston Globe: A long-awaited report concludes that 12 cents of every $1 paid for health insurance in Massachusetts goes toward 26 state-mandated benefits, from maternity and mental healthcare to infertility and diabetes services.... Insurers and small business groups said the findings show that mandates are helping to drive up costs, ...

Employer mandate in Colorado

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

The Denver Post reported last week that the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 is pushing a ballot initiative (currently "Ballot Proposal 92") that would make criminals out of any Colorado company for not buying their employers insurance.  Companies employing fewer than twenty people are exempt.* The Union calls it the initiative "Employee Responsibility for Health Insurance." I'd ...

Guaranteed issue & community rating backfire

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

From a recent report by Americas Health Insurance Plans and Milliman, Inc.: Guarantee[d] issue requires insurers to sell an individual health insurance policy without regard to a person’s health and community rating requires that all consumers pay the same or similar premiums without regard to age or gender.  According to the ...

health insurance choice in New Jersey

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

New Jersey Republican Jay Webber is proposing legislation similar to Cory Gardner's HB 08-1327, which would alllow customers to buy insurance that meets the regulations of other states.  From the Wall Street Journal: Mr. Webber's proposal is a state version of Arizona Congressman John Shadegg's federal legislation to let individuals buy insurance ...

Colorado regulations deny woman coverage

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Mark Kilmer at StateHouseCall.org found this story in the New York Times, which illustrates why we should be free to buy insurance that meets regulations of any state.  It's also an example of unintended consequences of political controls. He summarizes the issue quite well, so I'll reproduce it here: The ...

AFL-CIO on mandated benefits

Monday, May 26th, 2008

Continuation of: Dude, what free market?. In their Denver Post commentary, AFL-CIO executives John Sweeney and Mike Cerbo also address benefits mandates (I assume) when they write that under McCain's health care reform plan: existing regulations would also be eliminated. For example, state laws that mandate coverage for mammograms or hospital stays ...