State legislatures love to add mandates to insurance: "If you want to sell your health insurance in Colorado, you must provide..."
And then you can fill in the blank with whatever politically-popular procedure that politicians can show off to their constituents: "I made sure that every child/woman/senior in Colorado has access to acupuncture/maternity/physical therapy."
The problem is not with those procedures. But why would we mandate that a 24-year old man buy maternity coverage? What happened to consumer choice? Mandates might win some votes, but they add to the cost of insurance, making no-frills, low-cost insurance unavailable to people who would like to be able to pick and choose the type of insurance they purchase. (For all of the people who say that our "market-based" system has failed us, it's not really "market-based" if your state representative is telling you what you can and can buy.)
The solution? Make it legal to purchase insurance across state lines.
Affordability would improve if consumers could escape states where each policy is loaded with mandates. "If consumers do not want expensive 'Cadillac' health plans that pay for acupuncture, fertility treatments or hairpieces, they could buy from insurers in a state that does not mandate such benefits," Mr. Herrick has written.
