If you heard a big groan about noon today, that was me. I had been reading Jed Lewison’s post on the Republicans proposal for "Health Care Reform". As someone who has lived in Texas for almost 15 years, their proposal was like Deja Vu(now you understand my screen name). Mollie Ivins(how I miss that woman) hit it on the nail when she said that Texas was the laboratory for bad government.
Reading the proposal was like listening to all the Texas republicans arguments that I have heard in the last 15 years. Especially, the deregulation part. Since I have lived here, we have basically deregulated electricity, health insurance, home owners insurance, and college tuition. If you want to know what their proposal will do, it is all here in Texas. So lets get started.
In 2001, before the Legislature eliminated most of the state's electric regulations, Texas had some of the cheapest electricity rates in the country. The argument then was that competition would drive prices even lower. Today, the cost of electricity for consumers in Texas is among the highest in the nation.
The health insurance industry was deregulated. Deregulation was supposed to also make health care affordable for everyone. Today, Texas has the highest rate of citizens without health care coverage, the highest share of children without health insurance in the nation, and the fifth-highest health care premiums in the nation. From 2001 to 2005, Texas families saw their health insurance premiums soar 40 percent—10 times faster than their incomes increased. Only two other states experienced greater hikes in health insurance premiums.
Now for the deregulation of the home insurance industry. In 2003, the Legislature passed comprehensive insurance reforms in the hopes of balancing the insurance marketplace in Texas and stabilizing homeowner insurance rates. The industry assured lawmakers that lessening rate regulation would stimulate competition and lower premiums for Texans. Six years later, we still pay the nation's highest homeowner premiums, on average $1,372, almost twice the national average of $764 and at the same time, the profits for insurance companies continue to rise. In fact, Not only do we pay more, we get half the coverage we did in 2003. And guess what, deregulation also failed to deliver on the promise of increase competition. We still have the same insurers.
And finally, state college tuition rates were deregulated in I think 2005. This was sold to us that it would decrease the rise of college tuition. Four years later? Tuition at state colleges and universities have basically doubled. We have the "Tomorrow Plan" were you could prepay tuition for your kids. Because the tuition has increase so dramatically, it has been closed to parents. There is more, but I don’t want to drag it out.
The whole point I want to get across is that deregulation does not work. The experiment has been done here in Texas. If someone tells you that we need to deregulate health insurance just ask them why? Tell them that Texas did it and now they have some of the most expensive health insurance in the country. They also have 25% of Texans uninsured. Is that what you really want?
One good note though. Texans are waking up. A good quote from Barbara Radnofsky:
The plea "Let us compete without regulation" is the same argument as teen agerswanting no curfew. "Trust us to come in at a decent time. No one else has a curfew. We'll be responsible out there with our friends."
We have learned that and there is change in the air. I am sure that you have seen the polls where 54% of Texans want to see democrats in control. They want to see more people covered by health insurance. They want more spent on education. Heck! 4 years ago we passed an amendment banning gay marriage. Now 58% of Texans are okay with civil unions. Trust me, that is progress. We are digging ourselves out of a hole. I bet you that we will be a purple state by 2012!
JMHO
MKC