Richmond Times−Dispatch, February 16, 2007

If you want to be a popular politician these days, you almost have to have a proposal for universal health coverage. John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Hillary Clinton are just a few of those who have come out with more government mandates for medicine. The reason for all this activity is the rising cost of health coverage, which leaves millions of Americans uninsured. How ironic, then, that one of the chief drivers of the rising cost of health insurance is . . . governmment mandates.

Sally Pipes, CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, notes that the average state imposes 36 mandates on health insurance companies. The diktats stipulate that insurers must provide, or at least offer, coverage for a wide range of treatments, from chiropractic visits to contraception to hospice care. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers a few years ago found that such mandates drove the cost of an insurance policy up 15 percent. In Virginia, such mandates have driven insurance costs up almost 25 percent. This should surprise no one. Imagine if the General Assembly required every car sold in Virginia to have a GPS tracking system, zone climate control, and a five−disc CD changer. That's in essence what insurance mandates do.

Politicians love insurance mandates because they can claim to be doing something for a specific constituency, yet fob off the cost on others. The small businesses that find themselves priced out of the insurance pool are someone else's problem. There's an easy way for states to help keep health insurance affordable: Stop telling insurance companies what to cover. Unfortunately, that's one approach to which most legislators have a strong allergic reaction.

Copyright (c) 2007, Richmond Times−Dispatch Distributed by McClatchy−Tribune Business News.

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