Health care bills would boost states' authority on premiums, benefits

The Chicago Tribune reports:

As the state's insurance director, Michael McRaith has a conflicting job: His office is charged with protecting Illinois consumers in their insurance transactions, while making sure their premiums are set high enough to keep the reserves of health plans well-funded.

The Illinois Department of Insurance helps to oversee a health care system that has allowed insurance companies to essentially dictate how much consumers are charged and what kind of benefits they get.

"We have no authority to review or approve the premiums other than to assure they are not too low," the 44-year-old McRaith said in an interview this month from his ninth-floor office at the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago.

But that would change under health care bills making their way through Congress. McRaith, along with other state insurance directors, would be given unprecedented powers in helping to decide the benefits and cost of health plans for the proposed government-regulated insurance exchange.

What better proof than this that premiums will go much, much higher under Obamacare?