I’ve been listening to Republican suggestions about creating some sort of cross state health insurance cooperative.

Since health insurance is regulated on a state level, if such a thing is created it will immediately subject the insurance market to the same forces the credit card industry encountered when the courts ruled they could sell credit cards nationally under the rules of the state they were incorporated in rather than the state in which the consumer lived.

You remember what happened with that, right? If you don’t, check the interest rate and fees on your last credit card bill. Insurance companies have likely already figured out how to game the system by playing state laws against each other, just as credit card issuers have.

The only way that doesn’t happen is if a set of national rules to regulate the industry is established. Which, being the first step down the road to socialism, is exactly what Republicans reject.