Megan McArdle is called to task for making a mistake . . . through being too generous to her opponents:
I erred so low because I was trying to be charitable to the cause of national health care. You see, the reason that insurance premia are so high in New York State is that New York State enjoys community rating, guaranteed issue, and a very generous bevy of mandatory services. The result is that the cost of insurance is very, very high. What I failed to realize was just how radically out of line New York’s rules had pushed its health care costs. The average premium across the United States has increased about 25% since 2004. In New York, the rate of inflation has apparently been about 16 times that. I wasn’t “aware” that insurance premiums have doubled and tripled over the last seven years, because for the country as a whole, this isn’t true.
So yes, John, the Atlantic’s economics expert didn’t realize just how much the kind of regulations Democrats are now pushing had managed to screw up New York’s health insurance market. In trying, while writing a blog post on the fly, to err on the side of charity towards my ideological opponents, I grossly misled my readers. Massive state interference in the insurance market is clearly much, much worse than I — the eternal pessimist! — managed to imagine. Thanks for calling that oversight to my attention.
