The argument that de-regulation keeps costs
down makes one very big and often fallacious assumption: that the
market is healthy and competitive. Such is not the case with the
individual health insurance market. Thus, policyholders in Texas,
in which regulations are lax, found that they received higher refunds
under the ACA-- because their premiums were higher to begin with. Why
were they higher? Because any company that can get away with charging
more money is going to do so. The Laffer curve for the health insurance
market looks a lot like the Laffer curve for the crack cocaine market.
There's a lot of leeway for them to jack up the price and not lose a
single bit of demand, but that doesn't mean that they should be allowed to.
Sometimes, the greater good of society trumps the profits of one company
or even one industry. Society != Socialism.
