Friday, September 25, 2009

Mandate minus price controls may increase healthcare costs

The Los Angeles Times reports that many experts believe an insurance mandate is vital to a healthcare overhaul. With everyone in the system, the nation's medical bill could be spread more broadly, alleviating pressure on those who have insurance to pay for those who don't. All of the major healthcare bills would penalize people who do not get health insurance.But Democrats have shied away from regulating premiums in the face of charges from business leaders and Republicans that controlling what insurers charge would be meddling too much in the private sector. As a result, while states have long supervised what companies charge for mandated automobile and homeowners insurance, the idea has been largely banished from the healthcare debate.

What do you think about the lack of price controls within the healthcare bill? Will this have a negative effect on healthcare costs for Americans? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Mandate minus price controls may increase healthcare costs




1 comment:

Unknown said...

HCR has a problem. Everyone wants to eliminate limits on pre-existing conditions and by extenstion, medical underwriting. You can't do that economically without mandating that healthy people join the risk pook to spread the risk. But penalizing/taxing people who don't want to pay for insurance is very heavy handed (even if states do it today with auto insurance)... this is going to be a tough sell.