As I noted back at my old blog, the Obama administration decided to last summer to make mental health coverage equal with physical health when it comes to insurance coverage. Their decision takes effect this summer.
In effect, the administration has mandated a new insurance benefit.
As most normal people would expect, health insurance premiums have been rising to cover the costs associated with this new benefit. The increases have been staggering. We just got hit by them where I work. Insurance premium increases are ginormous this year.
The response by the Obama administration? To seek power to block insurance premium increases.
Now as any first year economics student can tell you, when the government mandates that the price for a good or service be less than the cost to provide that good or service, the obvious and predictable result is that the good or service in question will cease to be available. Someone needs to hire a good first year economics student to advise the administration.
Were I a more cynical person, I'd start to believe that the administration had purposefully orchestrated the current increase in insurance premiums in order to gain political support for their attempts to seize control of one seventh of our economy via a federally dictated insurance benefit.
On the other hand, I have no idea what the insurers are thinking. Perhaps they think that national health care is a fait accompli and they are better off reaping whatever profits they can while they can. Pretty short sighted of them, but that seems to be the national standard for public and private policy these days.
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