The manager’s amendment would eliminate the state regulation gutting “nationwide” plans and replace them with “multi-state plans” in a new OPM exchange. This is a positive change I was hoping would be made. If you are going to allow insurance companies to sell their plans on a national basis you need a national regulator to [...]

Ezra Klein has done the discussion on health reform a big disservice by making false claims about what could, in fact, start a race to the bottom in the insurance market. He writes: What it doesn’t allow is for insurers to simply sell their wares in any state. Aetna could not, for instance, decide that [...]

One of the ideas currently being floated around right now is to have the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) create an exchange for private, non-profit insurance plans that would be sold within all the state-based exchanges. As a new idea, I don’t think the proposal has any merit. There would be some value in having the [...]

Dan Pfeiffer wisely went after Charles Krauthammer’s terrible column in which he makes the absurd claim that the pillars of health care reform should be taxing benefits, tort reform, and selling insurance across state lines. (Really Krauthammer? universal coverage, community ratings, ending rescission, banning pre-existing condition exclusion, rewarding quality over quantity, etc… did not make [...]

The Senate bill contains a provision long sought by the health insurance industry lobby AHIP. It would allow for the sale of “nationwide plans.” Theses plan would not be required to follow the state laws regarding what medical treatments must be covered. It is described as: Allows insurers in the individual and small group markets [...]