Bad Bill Of The Week: SB 783: Paging Jim Black | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This post, by Brian Balfour, was originally published in the Bill of the Week section(s) of Civitas's online edition.

    In politics, it seems, bad ideas never die. This week’s Bad Bill of the Week – the first for the 2014 session – dredges up the type of legislative scheme that previously landed a state legislator in prison. Senate Bill 783, sponsored by Ralph Hise (R-Madison), Establish Chiropractor Co-Pay Parity, would require that insurance plans in North Carolina establish co-pays for chiropractors no higher than co-pays for seeing a regular doctor.

    Have we already forgotten the behavior of Jim Black? Do we not remember his secret meetings in IHOP bathrooms? We don’t know that such hijinks are involved in this SB 783 – but such legislation naturally lends itself to corruption. In this case, chiropractors have a lot to gain through a government mandate that their services become far cheaper for their customers. When politicians create legislation that generates concentrated benefits upon a specific group of people, there is a greater incentive for corrupt activity.
The felon Jim Black: Above.
    These concentrated benefits, of course, would be dispersed among the rest of us in the form of higher insurance premiums. Forcing the many to pay for major benefits of the few continues the shift in power from citizens to the political class. For those “good-government” types who want to eliminate unethical and corrupt behavior by politicians, the real solution is for government to stop meddling in our affairs by dispensing favors and privileges upon politically-connected businesses or industries.

    Rather than having politicians try to micro-manage all insurance policies in the state, instead the General Assembly should remove state mandates and allow insurance companies and consumers to choose what is best for them. Better still would be to allow consumers to shop for insurance coverage in other states as well. Because it would make everybody pay for the benefit of a politically-connected few, and further incentivize political corruption, Senate Bill 783 is this week’s Bad Bill of the Week.