Insurance reform for the dogs (and cats)

All the hollering about health care reform and the Democratic Party plan to require that all Americans obtain insurance sent me scrambling to the Internet last week -- it was finally time to make sure everyone in my house had medical coverage.

I spent hours navigating the Web sites of a variety of providers and was thrilled to find lots of choices and prices that fit my budget. I could buy high-deductible catastrophic coverage for an emergency or serious illness, or I could select a lower-deductible plan that offered reimbursement for routine care, including dental examinations and cleanings.

Best of all, my search wasn't limited to Nevada insurers and affiliates -- I was able to get price quotes from across the country on portable policies that easily transfer across state lines, with no link to my employment. National competition clearly is good for the consumer, with multiple Web sites offering the option to "customize a plan to fit your needs."

I know what you're thinking: How can you possibly have so many choices when Republicans are telling anyone who'll listen that interstate competition doesn't exist in the health insurance business? How can you have the flexibility to create a portable, a la carte policy when nearly every state has a different set of coverage mandates?

It's simple. I wasn't looking for health insurance for me, my wife or my kids.

I was shopping for my cats.

The pet health insurance industry is thriving, largely because it operates free from the micromanaging of state and federal politicians. And it provides valuable lessons for Washington in the pursuit of so-called "reforms."

Rather than work toward supplying Americans with the choices they have for coverage of their critters, President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are moving in the opposite direction, seeking to limit choice by piling more costly regulations and requirements on insurance companies.

"They (insurers) will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime," President Obama said in his speech to Congress this month. "We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. ... And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies -- because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives."

Apply the president's vision to pet insurance. Think you'd be able to "customize a plan to fit your needs" after all this was written into a policy? Think you'd save any money?

Me neither. Congress is still grinding up this particular sausage, but it goes without saying that insurance companies can't get rid of reimbursement caps, create new, lower out-of-pocket caps and cover the full cost of well care without significantly increasing premiums, going out of business or requiring a federal takeover.

You can't increase demand for health care while simultaneously reducing costs, even through the heavy hand of legislation. One way or another, we'll all be paying a lot more for health care, significantly worsening the problem Democrats supposedly are trying to solve.

Why do we have it so much better in buying health coverage for Fido and Fluffy? Pets can't vote (although that probably hasn't stopped ACORN from trying to register them).

Health care is powerful campaign issue. It provides politicians with opportunities to appear compassionate and responsive to deeply personal matters. It also allows them to unleash vicious attacks on anyone who suggests reducing government's role in health care. Candidates can be portrayed as healers or grim reapers.

Last year, Henderson voters witnessed this dynamic in the race between Republican state Sen. Joe Heck and Democratic challenger Shirley Breeden. The Democratic Party distributed anti-Heck mailers that showed angry, bald women in hospital gowns, eviscerating him for voting against legislation that would have required Nevada insurers to cover a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer.

"You voted against preventive measures for cervical cancer and prostate cancer," Breeden sneered at a debate with Heck. "You tell me what kind of representative that is."

The idea that Heck, a physician, was opposed to preventive care was ludicrous. He voted against the bill because he knew it would drive insurance costs higher and perhaps increase the number of uninsured as a result. It wasn't a vote against preventive care -- it was a vote to make individuals, not insurers, pay for some types of preventive care.

He lost.

If lawmakers want to make health care cheaper, they need to get rid of insurance mandates, not create new ones. They need to increase competition and choice, not stifle it. And certainly, if they're going to tell us we have to buy health insurance, they can't tell us to buy the equivalent of a fully loaded Lexus when all we want is a mo-ped.

It works for Fido and Fluffy. It will work for you and me.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer.