Questionable Benefits of State Mandates for Health Insurance

The Pacific Research Institute a new study on the cost of health insurance mandates.  As would be expected (see our commentary on autism and slacker mandates), they find that mandates drive up the cost of coverage; this in turn leads to more uninsured and more unemployment.

They conclude that each insurance mandate increases the number of uninsured by 0.25%.  Given Pennsylvania's 38 mandates, this estimate would mean than insurance mandates alone lead to 9% of the population without uninsurance - which is most of the uninsured population.

Conclusion: while Governor Rendell's billion dollar government-run insurance plan would only cover a fraction of the uninsured, repealing mandates would lead to coverage for most of the uninsured, not to mention lowering costs for those with insurance.