On the recordMarch 7, 2017
That is right. When everybody pays an average, if you allow some people to pay more, some people are going to pay less, but it is a zero-sum game. Every time they show somebody can pay less, then know that somebody will pay more. They have a scheme, for example--they call it association plans-- where you get a group of healthy people, they come from out of the insurance pool and get a better rate because the insurance company will look at the association and say: Those are the young, healthy people, I can give them a better rate. They can save money. What happens to everybody else? They have to pay more. Last time they came up with this idea, the research showed that 80 percent of the people will pay higher premiums if you allowed people to withdraw from the pool, a healthy group. Now, actually, it will always work, because the group you pull out, if the bids come in higher than average, nobody is going to buy the insurance. They are going to go right back into the regular pool. So any time you have one of these things, it will only work if you are pulling out young, healthy people, and that leaves behind, for everybody else, higher rates.
