States Step In to Put a Lid on Health Costs

As a California state lawmaker, Dave Jones sponsored four bills that would have given insurance regulators authority to reject health-plan rate hikes, as they can in 35 other states. None became law. Now that he’s California’s state insurance commissioner, and running for a second term, Jones wants California voters to grant him that power directly.

He’s urging passage of Proposition 45, a November ballot measure that would let him deny proposed insurance rate increases if his office deems them too high. This power would apply to individual and small-business health-insurance markets, which cover about 6 million Californians. Jones argues that states need the ability to keep a lid on premiums as health providers and insurance companies absorb new Obamacare customers. “There’s nothing in the Affordable Care Act or state law that reins in excessive health insurance and HMO rate hikes,” he says. “It’s really the missing piece” of the law.