Thuglican contribution to reform=crossing state lines for insurance=more deregulation

The only item that I have seen the thugs present to healthcare reform is about crossing state lines to buy health insurance.

States have spent decades really setting up consumer protection laws largely geared toward preventing insurance fraud. By crossing state lines, this effectively nulls all those consumer protections. Insurance companies of all kinds would be given free reign on the public - not something any of us need. This is the "free market" approach to healthcare. We are all seeing what free market and deregulation means to the overall economy.

Free market anything is not going to provide coverage to the poor and working poor, children, or the out of work. It's just more trickle down nonsense. Trickle down coverage.

Single payor or nothing. Real reform, or pack your bags and go home. I have only begun to fight.


Edited to add link from McCain's attempt to bring this to the table:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/healthwellness/106024/the_dangers_of_mccain%27s_plan_to_sell_health_insurance_across_state_lines/

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Those who support purchasing health insurance from any state argue that it will invigorate market competition and drive down premiums. However, a recent study by the New America Foundation showed that:

The primary source of "savings" under is not more competition or more efficient insurers. The savings comes from separating the healthy from the sick.... would lower premiums for the healthiest Americans, but it would raise premiums and reduce coverage options for everyone else.


Indeed, permitting the sale of health insurance across state lines would undermine all existing consumer protections, which are determined state by state. As Families USA revealed, state consumer protections-particularly in the individual health insurance market-vary dramatically from state to state. Some states have made tremendous strides in creating accessible, functional insurance markets for individuals and small businesses. As the New America Foundation points out, Senator McCain's proposal would eliminate the best protections and bring all states down to the lowest common denominator:

Selling health insurance across state lines would have the ultimate effect of standardizing state regulation to the least restrictive level, thus de facto de-regulating individual insurance markets. Politically, this allows the de-regulatory preferences of one state to negate the regulatory preferences of the 49 other states, without either a national or state-specific vote.

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Edited to add review of Dr. Dean's new book:

http://eastcountymagazine.org/?q=node/1758

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The free market just doesn’t work in medicine. You can’t be an informed consumer. I never saw someone with severe chest pain jump off the table and say, Doctor, I’m going to the cheaper guy down the street.” -- Howard Dean. M.D. , on a recent book tour in San Diego