I called my congressman...

About the HC bill at the behest of OFA. He's an R, but what the heck. I wanted to know where he stood and more importantly, I wanted him to know where I stand. The woman who answered his phone was very pleasant, but said he did not support the current bill or any of the current proposals.

I asked what his big plan was and unsurprisingly, she said it was "all on his website." Since the thought of wading through a lot of Republican crap on his website sounded less appealing than say a root canal, I asked if she could just give me the bullet points. "One thing. What's just one thing?"

Her response was that the over-riding issue was to allow insurance to be sold across state lines to encourage more competition. Okay, I thought. That doesn't really seem like it's going to go a long way to solving this problem, but at the same time, what's the harm in allowing that?

So, I throw it open to the wisdom of DU. What is wrong with allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. Really, I don't I know the answer. What am I missing?

remember how well that worked out for us when the credit card companies all "moved" to South Dakota - state of no usury laws? (You'll notice their CEOs did not move to Sioux Falls). It will do nothing to improve competition it will only allow them to cheat us more.

This whole "sell across state lines" thing is bogus. United Health Group has subsidiaries in lots of states. What UHG doesn't like is that those subsidiaries are all subject to the regulations of the states they operate in.

Also, ask your congressman's office why they didn't do this when Bushie was in charge?

I knew you guys would know the answer.

Oregon has mental health parity, for instance, and laws regarding plan b. Montana was the first state to require alcoholism treatment to be paid for.

If you allow insurance sales across state lines, insurance companies will just go to whatever state allows them to sell crap and we'll all have to buy it.

It's one of the worst ideas out there.

here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/selling_insurance_across_state.html

Making it easier for them to sell substandard coverage and harder for consumers to pursue them when there is a problem.

Look at what happened with credit cards when they were all allowed to go to the states with the most lenient lending laws. It used to be if you lived in say, Florida, who had a usury law that prohibited interest over 18%, the credit card companies could not charge higher. And if you had a dispute, any arbitration or lawsuit was under the local state law, not some far off state like Delaware or South Dakota. But the laws were changed, credit card companies moved to states who had lenient laws, allowing usurious interest rates and exorbitant fees - or they moved to small states where they could buy the legislature and get the laws they wanted. And look where we are now - credit card companies charging rates as high as 78%, making up fees whenever they can, and gouging the consumer.

Health insurance companies will follow that precedent, and no one will be willing to stop them.

After hearing the introductory message, it went to the switchboard and began ringing, but got disconnected each time.

Fortunately, Congressman McNerney is behind HCR, but I wanted to thank him.

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