With ObamaCare less than a month old, Senator Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat, is proposing a new Bill in the Senate Healthcare Committee to impose Federal price controls on insurance companies. Democrats, such as Feinstein, propose to do this by allowing states to reject premium increases they deem unreasonable. While 27 states conduct rate reviews on small group and individual policies, they don’t use it as a political tool like Governor Duval Patrick of Massachusetts where three major health insurance companies may soon be facing insolvency due to the highest healthcare costs in the country. This is causing insurance premiums to spike and the Massachusetts government refuses to grant premium increases. Since premium increases are a direct result of healthcare costs Governor Patrick is now promising price controls on doctors and hospitals.

The Massachusetts system is out of control with $500 million in cost overruns the system is collapsing. Remember this is the system Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sibelius touted as the model for ObamaCare. It’s not working in Massachusetts and it’s not going to work for the rest of the country. Maybe that is why the Democrats are scrambling to add price controls to ObamaCare. As they say in Texas: this is all hat and no cattle.