Both parties see benefit of selling insurance across state lines, but they disagree on how to do it

With efforts to pass a national health care bill at a stalemate in Washington, two newspaper explore some of the options. The New York Times reports: "As Republicans and Democrats claim to be searching for common ground in the health care debate, one idea that lawmakers on both sides seem to agree on is that health insurance should be sold across state lines. … But Republicans and Democrats fiercely disagree over how to go about allowing such sales, and some independent health care experts warn that the idea may be more appealing in theory than in practice, perhaps even raising rather than lowering costs" (Herszenhorn, 2/13).

The Washington Post reports: "Proponents of leaving health-care reform to the states have gained momentum as national legislation stalls in Congress, setting off a new debate over who is best able to tackle one of the nation's thorniest social issues. Advocates of a state-by-state approach are invoking welfare reform, which originated in the states. … Imposing national health-care reform, they argue, ignores local variations in health-care markets and politics. … Supporters of a national approach counter that relying on states would mean accepting the status quo for years to come. A state-by-state approach makes it harder to rein in health costs with systemwide reforms. And cash-strapped states are in no position to launch new initiatives" (MacGillis, 2/14).

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.