What the R's really mean by 'Health Freedom.' It's not just selling insurance 'across state lines.'

[flpoljunkie]

(Thirty-seven million people without health insurance don't have 'freedom'-- what they have is no access to health care. The Republicans' health care bill is the insurance companies dream come true.)

Will the Northern Marianas become America's insurance capital?

It seems that the Republican health-care alternative is, surprisingly, even worse than I thought. It's not just that it allows insurers to cluster in whichever state has the loosest regulations and sell policies that only accord with those minimal standards (which is the dynamic that brought you a credit card industry based almost entirely out of South Dakota). It also allows them to use the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas for the same purpose. All those territories are poorer, and would have even more incentive to give insurers whatever regulatory concessions they wanted in return for the jobs and tax revenue that would come from Wellpoint opening offices in Guam.

By Ezra Klein | November 6, 2009

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/will_the_northern_marianas_bec.html