I don't know why someone like Rush Limbaugh would make a big deal about this. Eliminating state barriers to insurance would probably save customers no more than 5% on their premiums.
Where did you get that number? One of the biggest drivers of cost in the insurance market has been the state mandates. Buying insurance across state lines will put the state insurance boards and state legislatures in competition and will force them to drop all of these crazy mandates.
This is a sticky issue.
Insurance is a contract for financial services regulated at the state level. Each state makes its own laws on how the contracts can be written for their residents.
Many types of insurance are offered by the the big companies in multiple states, but their contracts offered are usually different in each state.
So the real question is should it be taken away from the states by fedzilla and turned into one size fits all?
Everyone seems to forget this the first step of a three-phase approach:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/repeal-and-replace
The insurance sale change can’t be made by tweaking Obamacare because it was not part of Obamacare in the first place. Trump has made it clear he wants that as a key part of his plan, and has spoken of buying health insurance just like you buy car insurance in every speech he’s made.
Rush Limbaugh is not needed.
It helps, a lot.
In a previous life, I was a pricing actuary. If only one or companies sell insurance in your market, chances are a lot higher that you won’t get the product that best fits your needs. There used to be over 3,000 health insurers. Through state-by-state regulation, that has been knocked down - 50? 200? I don’t follow the details (no financial benefit to me). Must especially use interstate commerce clause to stop states from regs that limit the market via continuous regulation. Lots of insurers leave a state because the cost of compliance is more than maximum likely profit.