Locking the barn door after the horse got away

[eridani]

That's exactly what this sop of requiring insurance companies to have Medical Loss Ratios of 85% is. Real regulation is flat out dictating what basic comprehensive insurance packages must contain and what they must cost. Every other developed country getting to universal health care via private insurance does this. So does every public utilities commission in the US.

What if we regulated utilities by merely requiring them to spend a certain percentage of their gross income on actual power generation? In that case, if grandma died when her respirator shut down due to a fake power 'shortage' designed to jack up electricity prices, the public utilities commission would very likely determine that during the last fiscal year they didn't spend enough of their gross on actual electricity. Dead grandma would then qualify for a refund on her utility bill, way too late to do her any good.

It is equally silly to expect to adequately regulate private health insurance this way.

Dear Mr and Mrs Sarkisian:

It's really too bad your daughter died when CIGNA wouldn't cover her liver transplant, but things will be ever so much better when we make requiring specific Medical Loss Ratios into law. After this reform, if the government determined that CIGNA's MLR was too low at the end of their fiscal year, you would get a premium refund! Isn't that WONDERFUL!

Yours truly,
Dr. Pangloss