THAT’S DEBATABLE:

Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate) recently introduced a bill requiring state regulators to sign off before insurance carriers drop a policyholder accused of failing to disclose a preexisting medical condition. The bill is an answer to complaints that some health insurance companies cancel policies after a customer gets sick. Should the state get more involved in regulating health company insurers?

The state should not place a government bureaucrat in charge of deciding what is best for patients or their policies, which appears to be an indirect way of instituting state-controlled health care. The state would ultimately decide the standards for insurance companies, and decide who keeps their coverage.

Insurance companies should manage the terms of their own contracts with policy holders and be able to protect the premiums of honest policy holders against dishonest fraudulent claims.

During a $16 billion-plus deficit we should be reducing the regulatory burdens on California businesses, not expanding them with expensive new regulatory schemes.

Tom Harman

Senator

(R-Huntington Beach)

No one wants to see people dropped from their health insurance policies, but people should not defraud insurance companies, either. Insurance is supposed to work when people buy it before they need it. Imagine if people could buy auto insurance after an accident. Insurance companies would go broke or raise rates so high that few could buy insurance.

Rather than pass another law regulating the health insurance industry, regulators should carefully examine insurance fraud as well as instances of improper insurance industry conduct and act to deter all forms of bad behavior.

Chuck DeVore

Assemblyman

We must build a health care system that puts patients back in charge. This means giving each person the ability to pick the health plans and services best suited for his or her needs.

If you want the public to focus on the positive impact of free-market health-care reform, you must make HMOs compete to provide real quality to patients. Let’s force the HMOs to cut the costs of their own bureaucracies, instead of cutting quality care.

Assemblyman Hector De La Torre’s bill provides another layer of regulation to the already crushing burden of taxation, regulation and litigation driving up our health-care costs and diminishing our care.

Van Tran

Assemblyman

(R-Costa Mesa)