Politics

State Insurance Commissioners Take Baton from Congress

By Wendell Potter

Now that Congress has taken final action on its health care reform legislation, the reform debate has now shifted to, of all places, Denver.

The legislation that is now the law of the land was just the first step. Despite its size -- more than 2,000 pages -- the bill in many cases only lays out Congressional intent. In that sense, it is a framework for reform. The law requires that numerous new regulations be written to govern the way health insurers do business, a responsibility that Congress passed on not only to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services but also to one very influential non-governmental organization: the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). The bill mentions the NAIC -- an acronym most Americans probably only see once a year when they renew their cars' license plates -- at least 10 times, and it gives the organization some very important assignments.

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Full post as published by PR Watch on March 26, 2010 (boomark / email).