Impacts of State Regulation on the Marketing and Pricing of Individual Health Insurance

Mr. Habeck's timely article presents a clear view of the impact of regulation on individual health insurance practices and policies which has heightened in recent years as a result of perceived and/or imagined shortcomings in the industry by consumer groups, legislators and regulators. The author's discussion of the instruments - mandated benefits, minimum loss ratios, policy readability, reserve requirements and risk classification - used by government regulators provides the reader, if he or she has not already experienced it, a sense of the pervasiveness of government rules and regulations. In fact, in a recent book by Murray L. Weidenbaum, "The Future of Business Regulation", Mr. Weidenbaum notes "At times it seems that each and every move that business makes is studies with almost obsessive attention by one or more regulatory agencies, far out of proportion to the inherent need for government attention." Yet, in spite of the regulator's growing omnipresence there is still considerable room for private initiative and action. LOB-Health