Selling Health Insurance Across State Lines

[abluelady]

I totally "get" why that is not a good thing, but I'm curious why these same insurance companies don't put their companies in each state. Is the "selling across state lines to increase competition" another bogus Repub talking point?

[dflprincess]

1. Many of them do have divisions in several states (United Health Group is an example)

In Minnesota one of the nonprofit insurers, Healthpartners has partnered with Cigna in some kind of misbegotton relationship. This way Cigna gets a presence here and Healthpartners manages to do some selling outside of Minnesota.

Healthpartners doesn't have as bad a reputation - either as an employer or as an insurer - that Cigna does and I don't really understand why they'd want to partner with the Cigna crooks. I have friends who work at HP who don't get either.

[FormerDittoHead]

2. Yes, of course. It's ALWAYS the OPPOSITE.

Get this - BUSINESS DOES NOT LIKE TO COMPETE BY PRICE. They'll always mix apples and oranges with you.

They (insurance companies and their Republican employees) are selling this "across state lines" thing because they want to eliminate state regulators and have some 'lowest common denominator' federal regulation take its place.

CHA-CHING!

Competition among insurance companies will NEVER be meaningful. If they are not meeting in secret and arranging their market shares (drug companies got caught doing this a while ago) they 'understand' that there's more money to be had if they DON'T compete by PRICE.

"Competition" among these guys is a JOKE.

[abluelady]

3. That's What I Thought

So why aren't the Dems out there telling that side of the story. It is like Obama says "you won't have to change your policy." Give me a break. Every time my employer wants to change companies/plans, I have to change. Why are we not putting these facts out there?????