3M to dump retirees from medical coverage

[The Rabbi]

Increased enforcement costs?
Bigger Government?

You didn't take the econ quiz I posted in another thread, did you?

Naah figured it was a gimme if you could pass it.

More likely you took it and screwed up. That would explain a lot. Like your lack of ability to think beyond Stage One.

 

[uscitizen]

You didn't take the econ quiz I posted in another thread, did you?

Naah figured it was a gimme if you could pass it.

More likely you took it and screwed up. That would explain a lot. Like your lack of ability to think beyond Stage One.

didn't that say something about states having to enforce insurance products in other states?

 

[The Rabbi]

Naah figured it was a gimme if you could pass it.

More likely you took it and screwed up. That would explain a lot. Like your lack of ability to think beyond Stage One.

didn't that say something about states having to enforce insurance products in other states?

Which would be impossible. Yes.

 

[code1211]

That is simply not true. The insurance Commissioner or a similar authority regulates insurance within any particular state. License is granted to insurance companies to operate within any state and every state regulates insurance per its own laws.

Insurance companies can create versions of their products which fit the rules and regulations within various states, but simply having a product approved in Texas, as an example, does not automatically make that product legal to sell in Indiana.

Licenses to sell insurance are issued at the state level and without a license granted from any particular state, it is illegal for any agent to sell insurance outside the state for which he is licensed.

That's how things work now. I was describing how Republican across-state-lines proposals work--Shadegg's Health Care Choice Act, the repeal-and-replace law (which lifts the portion on interstate purchasing directly out of H.R. 3217), even Ron Paul's much more terse H.R. 5444.

Under those proposals (you know, the ones Republicans are ostensibly going to try and implement next year), no state may prevent the sale of any insurance policy inside its borders if the issuer is headquartered in a different state. The only insurance companies subject to that state's insurance laws or consumer protection laws are those that are headquartered in that state. Insurers choose the primary state in which they will be licensed, at which point they may sell their products in any of the 49 other secondary states without being licensed in those secondary states or complying with the laws of those states. Which, of course, means each state's insurance market is effectively deregulated. And, as I noted, enforcement authority remains with the primary state, meaning every state will be responsible for enforcing its insurance laws--on products licensed in that state--in every other state.

It seems to me that, just as the 2000 plus page Health Insurance Reform was immediately subjected to people turning the already uninteligible mess into a legaleze version uninteligible mess, any proposal that the Reps might get through will be subjected to the same legalezization.

You can't possibly know what is in this because you have to pass it to find out what's in it.

 

[CaféAuLait]

it's already to late to back track, with big top 100 companies saying they can't afford health care thousands of smaller ones will view it also as a bottom line enhancer.

Public option is all but here already, Obama will cram that one down in his second term.

More and more are piling on:

AT&T announced last week that it was taking a $1 billion charge because of the provision. Deere & Company announced a $150 million charge, Caterpillar a $100 million charge, and 3M a $90 million charge."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30subsidy.html?_r=1

 

[code1211]

it's already to late to back track, with big top 100 companies saying they can't afford health care thousands of smaller ones will view it also as a bottom line enhancer.

Public option is all but here already, Obama will cram that one down in his second term.

More and more are piling on:

AT&T announced last week that it was taking a $1 billion charge because of the provision. Deere & Company announced a $150 million charge, Caterpillar a $100 million charge, and 3M a $90 million charge."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30subsidy.html?_r=1

I deal regularly with HR executives who are considering the option of dropping all insurance and just paying the fines because the cost of the fines is PREDICTABLE.

PREDICTABLE. Even if the cost is higher than average for the last few years, predictablitily is what business likes. Predictability allows accurate cost projection, firm committments to stable pricing and assurances that some unexpected expense will not crop up with no warning.

In a work force of 100, as an example, a group health policy can change in cost dramatically if one man gets cancer or one woman has a difficult birth. Make that 5 out of 100 and the business is in Dutch.

An interesting dynamic is being set in motion with this and the insurance Companies are on the trains on the way to the camps right now. They will soon join the members of the AMA and all will take a "shower bath" together. A nice, restful future awaits their careers.