I think you are mostly right. By itself this doesn't represent the Nanny state.
But I VERY much doubt the people behind this change are looking at it as an isolated policy. This is just an early step in a conditioning process. It's about getting people used to the idea of state involvement in our health habits (or our lack thereof). Nanny-state types will point to programs like this one when they want to expand the government's reach into private health insurance or the private food purchases of consumers.
There is a common pattern to these kinds of movements. First, the government imposes the new standards on itself. Then the government imposes the standards on any entity accepting government funds. And then, once the ideals of the movement win either widespread toleration or apathy, those ideals are imposed on everyone. As examples, consider the civil rights movement, the anti-smoking movement, and the gay rights movement (which has not yet reached the final stages but definitely seems to be heading in the direction).
Sadly, there are individuals and groups out there just chomping at the bits to make us into healthier people...whether we want to be healthier or not. With this in mind, I would say the article does indeed warrant a "Nanny state" alert.
1. Interest groups (industries) want government (taxpayers) to bear the costs of contract enforcement. It relieves them of those costs, and these regulations represent a form of subsidy.
2. The problem is, once the govt passes blanket regulations like this, the consumers have NO CHOICE among competing companies, some requiring different prices, and some pooling risk rather than discriminating, some giving price discounts for “good” behavior, rather than price increases for “bad” (costly) behavior (same thing, but - consumers can stomach the former, for some reason...). Industries don’t care about government intervention and the loss of customer choice, however; they only care about the bottom line. Most businesspeople are not free-marketeers, but are amoral profit maximizers — “by any means necessary,” unfortunately...
3. To be fair to the insurance industries that lobby the govt for these benefits, it is also true that the industries THEMSELVES are prevented from “discriminating,” initially. So these regulations may represent a second-best outcome, to them.
Ideally, government would get out of the business of both “preventing discrimination” (read: pricing risk), and out of the business of pandering to interest groups desiring govt. to bear liabilities, rather than having markets bear the risks. The Moral Hazard problem (and costs to taxpayers) is the end result of the latter activity. Let companies discriminate if they want — but also let competition among companies give consumers choices, while having businesses bear their own risks & costs.
Does this help?
Regards,
4Liberty