LA Times

Spurred by heart-wrenching stories of sick people denied health coverage, the state of New York did what many of President Obama’s critics say he should do now — it passed a relatively simple law requiring insurers to accept all applicants.

Other states have taken similar steps, making narrowly targeted changes instead of trying to overhaul their whole healthcare systems.

But two decades later, New York’s experience offers a cautionary tale: Making isolated changes to the complex medical insurance system can have unwelcome consequences.

Premiums in New York are now the highest in the nation by some measures, with individual health coverage costing about $9,000 a year on average. And nearly one in seven New Yorkers still lacks health coverage, a greater proportion than before the law was passed.

Oops.

…”You basically can’t have a functioning insurance market if people can buy insurance on the way to the hospital,” said Mark Hall, a Wake Forest University economist who studied New York’s experience.

So that means compelling people to buy insurance, something many legal scholars think this is unconstitutional.