Side Effects: Obamacare Puts States Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Kathryn Nix / August 17, 2010

Obamacare creates a host of new federal requirements billed as consumer protections.  But enacting these policies falls not on the feds, but on the states.

Some of these provisions were among the more popular components of Obamacare: guaranteed issue for children; letting individuals remain on their parents’ health plan up to age 26; requiring insurers to cover federally-defined preventive services, etc.

The goals behind these mandates are worthy.  But they could be achieved in better ways.  The approach taken here is virtually guaranteed to accelerate insurance costs.  Ironically, Obamacare also requires states to review “unreasonable” rate increases.

What authors of the health care takeover failed to consider was whether states actually have the authority to enforce these standards.  Robert Pear and Kevin Sack report in a recent New York Times article: (more…)