One advantage of being a slob and a newspaper subscriber is that occaisionally I’ll pick up an old paper and read a good story that I missed the first time around. Here’s last Friday’s WSJ, looking at how Maine’s attempt at a “public option” has turned out:
This problem was exacerbated because since the early 1990s Maine has required insurers to adhere to community rating and guaranteed issue, which requires that insurers cover anyone who applies, regardless of their health condition and at a uniform premium. These rules—which are in the Obama plan—have relentlessly driven up insurance costs in Maine, especially for healthy people.
The Maine Heritage Policy Center, which has tracked the plan closely, points out that largely because of these insurance rules, a healthy male in Maine who is 30 and single pays a monthly premium of $762 in the individual market; next door in New Hampshire he pays $222 a month. The Granite State doesn’t have community rating and guaranteed issue.
Crikey! For some reason, none of the websites that offer online health insurance quotes will offer quotes from Maine, so I can’t compare what my price would be. New Hampshire, though, is no bargain, with rates for me being a time and a half what they are in Texas.
For all the talk of RomenyCare in Massachusetts, it sounds like the Maine system is more analogous to ObamaCare.
Posted by Apollo in Health Care