Health insurance rate hikes. Why so surprised?

Perhaps I'm the stupid one here but I was never expecting higher levels and availability of health care to be less expensive (or even <i>as</i> expensive), at least in the short-term. I supported it anyways because it's the right thing to do.<p>A cheaper health-care option would be to take the sick out behind a barn and put them out of their misery, which is why we don't turn health care into a linear optimization problem.

Health insurance covering male maternity care is a complete no-op. It adds no benefit, but it never costs health care companies either. So it shouldn't cause a premium rate rise so is a bit irrelevant.<p>I get the feeling it was cited as an example to make the reforms look stupid, even though it doesn't actually have any negatives.

The ignorance on display here is a bit astonishing.<p>Health insurance in MA is not equivalent to health insurance in Idaho; in MA insurance is much more tightly regulated so that you can rely on it. What good is a largely unregulated insurance policy that refuses to pay out when you're really sick?<p>Now, if Idaho had strong regulators that were enforcing the same sort of standards as MA, you might be able to compare but then you'd run smack into the fact that...the cost structures are completely different. Everything is more expensive in MA, including housing and doctors.