> To be clear, the NAIC isn't an industry group - it's made up of insurance regulators. I suppose the argument could be made that they have a conflict of interest in that they'd benefit from increased regulation from an "empire-building" perspective.
Having 50 different markets to regulate sure seems like it'd result in a lot more demand fore insurance regulators than one market to regulate.
> It's likely true that health insurance premiums would be lower, on average, in an unregulated free market. It's also true that people with pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage or charged substantially higher premiums in an unregulated free market. The current approach to subsidizing coverage for those with pre-existing conditions is less efficient than a tax-and-spend approach would be (see, e.g., [0]), but it's more politically viable since it doesn't show up in government bugets.
Sure, there may be people who find the reasons for regulating the market to be more compelling enough to justify regulation. But that doesn't excuse the mental gymnastics required to convince oneself that this sort of regulation will somehow not only reduce costs but actually make things cheaper. This kind of thinking led us to having the poorest and unhealthiest patients subsidized by the rest of the nation - effectively a levying a flat tax on most insurance customers - and patting ourselves on the back as though this was a progressive change.
Also, your source is pretty dubious. I'm very skeptical of how analyzing the cost of helicopter ambulances specifically is supposed to be a good means of trying to back up the claim whether subsidy is less efficient than paying through taxes. Contrary to popular belief, most universal healthcare programs (e.g. most the ones in Western Europe, the UK being the notable exceptions) still leave the actual healthcare up to the private market.