Certain Republicans -- and Republican outlets -- are very excited over Arizona Representative John Shadegg's bill to allow consumers to buy insurance from all 50 states. The basic idea here is that, due to varying regulatory decisions, insurance in one place is cheaper than insurance in another. It covers less and exposes you to more risk, but it's cheaper. Under his bill, you could buy a cheap plan from, say, Missouri, even though you live in California, and even though the Missouri plan breaks California law.
Ignoring the possibility that this'd be ruled unconstitutional, it'sstill a bad idea. It's fine, I guess, in that it'd make health carecheaper for certain folks (though it's unclear how many healthy onesit'd suck away from the overall risk pool), but it's a little odd totell states -- particularly for Republicans to tell states -- that theycan't regulate the insurance sold in their boundaries.
So why are Republicans contravening states rights? Because this is aninsurance company giveaway: Insurers can simply find theleast-regulated state, base their plans out of there, but advertisethem everywhere. It'd be like producers selling goods in California butmaking them in New Hampshire and the federal government exempting theout-of-state goods from CA's sales tax.
