This is an issue with me.
I basically can't get health isurance. I have no medical problems (if I did, I'd be willing to exclude them), but they won't even talk to me as an individual.
I've looked at health insurance offerings on-line, but I've never purchased them.
The problem I see, is that many of the policies are hard to understand what it is that you get. It's hard to compare them. Some of them appeared to be worthless policies, that excluded everything that could possibly happen to you. And it's also hard to compare them.
I think that there is a need for state departments of insurance to review policies. I also think that the state should force policies into certain molds so that they can be compared. Certain things should not be allowed to be excluded, etc.
How you do balance simplifying insurance without preventing innovation or stifling competition is hard to answer. It's further complicated by the fact that state deparment of insurance executives are dependent on the insurance industry for their next job. Thus giving the insurance companies excessive pull.
However, None of that prevents buying on-line.
Our employer just announced with a 5 day warning that our deductible was going from $0 to $500. Last year I equested our union to keep our benefits at the same rate. I was laughed out of the room as their response was "what if they offer us something better and we've locked in on the old policy?" Just let me say, I told you so and I told you why it was important to make the benefits binding. Egads.....
Danny, I agree with your comments, but what you suggested about forcing comparability is the law in NJ, insurance companies fled the state when the law was enacted. If such a law is pasted nationally, insurance companies will exit en masse the health insurance industry, again forcing the US taxpayer to pick up the bill, and another route to HillaryCare or some equivalently horrible socialized system.
because stupid Nixon made it a deductable 'benefit' that your employers could offer you, stoopid insurance executives saw a mutual benefit of raising p-rices (unknown to comsumers) and less paperwork (your company does their work for them)
This was the first step (incrementalism) to socialized medicine.
I dont buy my car or homeowners insurance at work...!
That is why most people do not realize health insurance would cost over $6000 a year if you bought it yourself- a figure that would be intolerable otherwise.