Legal Commentary

Unfunded Mandates? State Insurance Commissioners Can't Enforce Health Regs

By Big Tent Democrat

No need for regulatory capture:

Faced with the need to review insurance rates and enforce a panoply of new rights granted to consumers, states are scrambling to make sure they have the necessary legal authority to carry out the responsibilities being placed on them by President Obama’s health care law. Insurance commissioners in about half the states say they do not have clear authority to enforce consumer protection standards that take effect next month.

Federal and state officials are searching for ways to plug the gap. Otherwise, they say, the ability of consumers to secure the benefits of the new law could vary widely, depending on where they live. [. . .] States have the primary role in enforcing many of the new standards. If a state fails to enforce a standard, the federal government will step in to do so — as it did in several states after passage of a health insurance law in 1996.

The fundamental problem with the regulatory reform framework favored by the Obama Administration and championed by Beltway Bloggers, like Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn, is the dependence on a regulatory framework that has always failed in this area and that, imo, will fail again.

What the critics of the "Professional Left" always fail to acknowledge is that while much of the legislation passed in the past years fit their wildest dreams, for many progressives, the belief is that the legislation simply will not work. Let's hope the Beltway Bloggers are right. I think they will not be on the health bill.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 15, 2010 (boomark / email).