newsobserver.com projects - mandates - Comments

Re: Orr: Reduce insurance mandates

FFC1304 — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:32:47 -0500

Wonder when Judge ORR will make an example of State Senator Martin Nesbitt, Democrat- Buncombe county for his blatent conflict of interest with NC BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD? He sits on the NC 'health' committee, yet
courts NCBS to sponsor three wannabee 'racin cars' with BCBS logos on them...when they gonna look into that bit of democrat corruption?

HOW did NC EVER get to be SOOoooo CORRUPT? Think democrat.

Re: Orr: Reduce insurance mandates

JohnHood — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:21:07 -0500

Adam,

I don't understand your rejoinder to Max. Did you read the document Ryan referenced here? It appears to list 47 health-insurance mandates in NC, including benefits, providers, and covered persons. Perhaps I am missing something.

As to your broader point, I would argue that there is really no difference between the two mandate issues. Forcing everyone to purchase health insurance necessarily means defining what "health insurance" is at a minimum, which brings us back to mandates on covered treatments, providers, and persons.

Re: Orr: Reduce insurance mandates

adamsearing — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:09:53 -0500

Max - Glass houses and all that. You cited "47 odd mandates" when you wrote about this issue.

Looks like you might want to do a little source checking yourself.

Re: Orr: Reduce insurance mandates

MaxB — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:54:01 -0500

It might be old school to you, Adam, but it's not old school to the people who can't afford to get insurance because the government forces them to buy marriage counselors, chiropractic, and mental health coverage they neither want nor need. We can argue about what's 'essential,' but are you seriously arguing all these NC mandates are essential?

Well, I have an idea: why not allow people to buy coverage in other states? Why is it that North Carolina's suite of mandates is perfect as-is and other states' suite of mandates, somehow, are not? Or, why not introduce "mandate lite" legislation like other states such as Connecticut, New York and Arizona have? That would mean that the insurers have to offer such coverage, but at least that savvy consumers would have the option of not buying certain elements. I can think of about 10 I wouldn't get straight away -- and I'd love to see my premiums go down because of it. I'm sure a lot of other people would, as well.

Perhaps you should go back and do a little more research on the issue, too, Adam. Seems like your mind is made up that we should all have to pay for chiropractors whether we want to or not.

Re: Orr: Reduce insurance mandates

adamsearing — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:16:48 -0500

That's one thing I really like about Bob Orr - he actually thinks hard about policy questions, even if you might disagree with him.

Actually, I think the mandate debate is pretty old-school, at least if you are talking about requiring insurance companies to do the right thing. Insurance companies learned over the last decade that taking actions like kicking new moms out of the hospital after 24 hours wasn't doing anything for their already battered images - whether it was legal or not.

The more pressing mandate debate is about whether requiring people to buy health insurance coverage should be a part of health reform.

Putting the Obama/Clinton sniping on this issue aside - in my view, their health plans are pretty similar - this really is an important question. In my view, eventually you do have to require everyone to buy insurance because you don't want someone taking a free ride until they get old, or sick, enough to actually want coverage. However, it's just a penalty on lower income workers if you aren't offering health plans that they can actually afford.

To mandate or not to mandate will be one of the big questions come next year if we do actually start talking about national reform.