Why should an insurance company get a state monopoly ever. Allow interstate competition per the original intent of the Commerce Clause.
Bump!
You, nor I, nor anyone else have enough bribes to swing that one. Too many people are being paid off to keep the monopolies in tact.
It is all about power and corruption all the way around. Just about any politician you can name either quit working for his “subjects” or never did. They are all free lancers, opportunists and self-serving. It is just too good a deal for high-mindedness to survive. An honest man in politics is about as scarce as a virgin in a whore house. Marble halls or gaudy parlors it doesn’t matter same thing goes on in both places.
Not a monopoly ....but some states will MANDATE that if a company wants to sell medical insurance policies in the state, it meet all the state standards ....and standards vary between states.
Some states want the insurance companies to cover the important basics - sex change operations, drug and alcohol rehab, etc. And the state wants the end user to have things “free” (i.e. - no copay) ...so the costs skyrocket. Other states might allow a medical insurance company to offer “just the basics” - catastrophic coverage, while the end user has to pay out of pocket for the reasonable items like basic checkups, etc. Such policies can be very very cheap.
But - the “compassionate states” don’t want the unwashed and unenlightened end users to go and get those “cheaper policies” (because how else are you going to spread the costs for these wacko added mandates unless you force everyone to pay.) Imagine how cheap the policies would be if the company could have higher rates for smokers, non-compliant overweight & obese people who wouldn’t change their life style, exclusions for injuries or medical conditions brought on by drug use or alcohol abuse? The “enlightened states” want the risks to be equalized and borne by everybody - hence the inability of the healthy people to by cost-effective insurance out of state!
Nothing prevents an insurance company in State A from doing business in State B, but if they do so they must meet all of the regulatory standards of State B. One reason why New York is such an expensive place for insurance is that the regulations can be very onerous. On the flip side, New York also has a reputation for sound, stable insurance companies. It's kind of strange how that works, I guess. Historically, a state like New York with a well-run financial regulatory structure (despite the fact that its politics are so leftist) is looking to protect its citizens from fly-by-night insurance carriers from other states who may undercut New York insurance companies by selling insurance policies without the financial backing and reserves that NY requires.
The issue here really comes down to the Commerce Clause vs. the Tenth Amendment.
You know the answer. The big insurers’ lawyers helped write ObamaCare in the back room of Harry Reid's office along with the unions, pharmaceutical makers and trial lawyers. The GOP had an opposing 250-page bill that included the abolition of state health insurance monopolies.