Let me add one thing to Austin’s post from earlier. Let’s focus on this part of the Jenkins piece:
Under this charter, let’s permit insurers to design their policies free of ObamaCare’s mandated benefit levels and free of state regulation…
What’s the first thing the new nationally-chartered insurers would do? Rush out cheap, high-deductible policies, allaying some of the resentment that the mandate provokes among the young, healthy and footloose affluent…
First, these folks could buy the minimalist coverage that (for various reasons) actually makes sense for them.
The regulations against under-insurance, weak as they may be, are some of the best aspects of the bill. The fact that mini-med plans were going away is a good thing, not a bad one.
Cheap plans are bad plans. There’s no magic to this. To a limited extent, you get what you pay for. The reason McDonald’s plans were low price was they they offered almost nothing in the way of benefits.
The various reasons that Jenkins glosses over in the last statement are almost always about cost. The reason McDonald’s offers that plan is because it is cheap. The reason most people buy cheap plans is because that’s all they can afford.
This is one of the worst ideas I’ve seen yet. It’s also has one of the best chances of actually happening. Lots of regulations will be set at the state level, and there are lots of things still left to be worked out.
