| Fascinating reality check from the Center for American Progress, with a local twist:
Under the Republican health care alternative filed in the House, young and healthy individuals can purchase policies from insurers that don't abide by local benefit or rate standards. The Republican bill allows the health insurer to choose a "primary state" "whose covered laws shall govern the health insurance issuer" and market policies to other states without adhering "to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes of the state."
Over at MYDD, Bruce Webb, calls the provision, "Sweatshop Insurance." "This bill goes far beyond that in stripping states of power over insurance rates and conditions," he notes. It "explicitly expands the definition of 'State' to include not just D.C. and Puerto Rico, which makes some sense in context, but adds BY NAME the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Jack Abramoff's favorite client-the Northern Marianas home of the 'Made in the USA' Chinese-owned close to slave labor sweatshops."
As Webb goes on to explain, "companies can simply designate the Northern Marianas as the 'primary State' for their plan, or since it is closer the Virgin Islands and then have those governments be the sole regulator. And given the record of corruption in the N. Marianas and the willingness of various Caribbean and Atlantic Island nations to let themselves be used as off-shore banking and tax shelter entities you can bet Aetna and WellPoint are slavering at the prospect of 'basing' their plans out of a PO Box on some tropical nation."
Really changes up this debate, don't you think? Does this mean that under the GOP health plan, there could be federal funding...for forced abortions? Of course the parasailing therapy could be an attractive benefit. We're sort of joking, but on the other hand, not really.
That's partly because in Colorado, we've already seen this proposal to undermine local regulatory authority over health insurance by 'breaking down state barriers,' known as the "race to the bottom bill"--revisit last year's battle over the failed House Bill 08-1327, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner and Sen. Shawn Mitchell. You've got to admit that after all the horrifying press Bob Schaffer earned from his Mariana Islands "model" last year, seeing it named in the federal version of Gardner's bill--as a "model" for health insurers to relocate to--is unusually rich. |
