The Trump administration has already encouraged the sale of insurance plans across state lines through controversial association health plans (AHP), which allow employer associations to skirt some of the ACA’s core consumer protections.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has been vocal about its opposition to allowing the sale and purchase of out-of-state insurance plans, calling the policy idea a “race to the bottom.” Insurers, NAIC argues, will seek out states that provide the least amount of regulatory oversight, create imbalances in insurance markets and shirk the consumer protections that come with having state-licensed insurers.
“Evidence suggests that such proposals do not work,” NAIC attorney Christina Goe wrote in a report last year. “In states that have already pursued across state lines legislation or tried to form interstate compacts, none resulted in a single insurer entering a new market or the sale of a single new insurance product.”