> 1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines.
I've always found this suggestion a bit disingenuous.
First, there is no federal law that bans insurance from being sold across state lines. What they really mean (but can't say because it is not politically appealing) is "Don't allow states to regulate insurance sold in their state."
State boards regulate insurance. They seem to do it well. No insurance companies failed during the 2009 financial crisis and the ones that came close (looking at you AIG) did so because of their activities and investments that fell outside of the state regulations.
Not allowing states to regulate insurance would reduce costs, but not for the reason you think. The cost of getting a product approved in a given market is predictable and a very small part of the cost of doing business.
By taking this right away from the individual states, we could see a race to the bottom where all insurance companies would incorporate in whatever state offered the lowest reserve requirements and loosest oversight. This would decrease the cost of policies and increase the profitability of the insurance companies.
It would be great until there was a hard year and the insurance companies would have the be bailed out by the taxpayers.
State regulation of insurance companies is a great thing. The states keep each other in line and they keep the industry solvent.
Edit:
BTW, auto insurance is also regulated on the state-level.