California is trying to house the homeless through a health insurance program. It worked for this man when he was homeless for a year as a young man. It was a success.
That is because he was in the system. His insurance had kicked in and so he had a legal right to live there. I don’t know how much better it would have been for him if he had found a place to spend a year in the program and then been able to get a job. But on the other hand that man might have been kicked out of the program a month later when all the state officials who made him available for the program were gone.
In California they are also trying to pass a law that would bar the most expensive health insurance providers from being allowed to sell their products in the state — this for profit.
The state plans to enact a law in 2013 that would put an end to health insurance companies offering consumers more insurance choices, higher premiums, and other benefits when they shop for coverage through their insurers.
State officials said this is a “bidding war” between insurance companies who want to increase prices and the Affordable Care Act, which requires states to ensure that insurers can offer consumers more choices of plans and charge consumers lower premiums.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” said California Department of Insurance spokesman Dan Mendoza. “No free lunch. What these players are interested in is to raise their profits” through sky-high premiums, he said.
In California, there has been a history of successful efforts to keep insurance companies out of the health care market, through the state’s insurance laws.
The state passed a law in 2000 that created a nonprofit insurance company known as Assurance Company of America that would take over an insurance company that couldn’t sell insurance in the state. The company would offer coverage for people who were uninsured or underinsured and charge them lower premiums. The company would have to accept all California customers,