Reply #33: HHS is only as powerful as its backing: that's the White House [View All]

[Nikki Stone1]

which has spent more time meeting with the insurance industry than with the progressive activists whom Rahm called "fucking retards."

Watch carefully at what happens with the Anthem case in California. There was a 39% increase out here this past month. HHS published a letter on their website, but it's the state of California that got Anthem to delay those increases for a month. Since my insurer is Anthem and I am in LA, I am watching extremely carefully to see who has what power.

If people are allowed to buy across state lines in the exchange, that could actually hurt the smaller insurers if the larger ones decide to undercut them. It also might lead to this:

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/health-insurance-across-state-lines

"The basic problem with this proposal, of course, is pretty simple. If you allow health insurance policies to be sold across state lines, states would start competing for insurance industry business by writing ever friendlier regulations. Eventually some small state will win this contest with an absurdly lax regulatory regime, and every insurance company in America will set up shop there. Essentially, the entire country would be forced to accept whatever pro-industry rules that, say, Wyoming decides to write for the rest of us. Do the citizens of all the other states really want to cede that power to Wyoming?"