States vary widely in their abilities to make health-insurance companies justify rates

How ready is your state to use an important part of the federal health-reform law, which makes health-insurance companies justify their rates? Maybe not very ready, according to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has long been a good source of information about health reform.

"It finds dramatic variations across states, with some states having with no authority at all and others with robust authority to review and approve or disapprove rates before they are implemented," Kaiser says. "Many states do not have enough trained actuaries to review all filed rates. In addition, statutory clauses can 'deem' rates approved if not acted on within 30 or 60 days, limiting states’ ability to conduct thorough reviews."

Kaiser gives many other shortcomings of state insurance regulation. For a PDF of the full report, click here. For a sortable table that gives rate-filing requirements and review authority for each state, go to this page on Kaiser's State Health Facts site.