630: One Big Beautiful Bill Act could lead to 'death spiral' in health insurance

North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread says North Dakota -- and America, really, since our state is hardly an independent nation -- is on an unsustainable trajectory when it comes to the cost of insurance and health care.

On this Plain Talk, Godfread, who is also the current president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, argued that Congress, with its much-ballyhooed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, has made things worse. "With what happened in the budget reconciliation bill, I'm really worried about this upcoming open enrollment period."

Godread, who is a Republican, argued that some of the provisions in the bill are "really going to harm consumers" and predicts "pretty significant rate increases across the board across the country."

He said there is talk of Congress coming back and fixing some of these issues, but that will be too little too late. 

"If they look at doing something, changing it in December, well, at that point, I've already gone on, shopped as a consumer, and realized the price is too high. I'm not going back in the last two weeks of the year to say, 'Oh, well, maybe this time they promise it's going to be better.'"

Pricing healthy people out of the insurance market would narrow the pool and drive up costs, creating what Godfread described as a "death spiral."

"We're on a track right now that is not sustainable, right? I mean, there is no more more to give when you get to health insurance premiums."

On an unrelated topic, earlier this year, the state legislature passed a law merging the state's previously independent Securities Department under Godfread's office after controversial Securities Commissioner Karen Tyler went to work for the state's Industrial Commission. That Godfread's office is now in charge of the inquiry into the high-profile dissolution of Epic Companies.

Godfread said he couldn't comment on that matter, specifically, but said he was surprised to learn that a restitution fund created by lawmakers to help mitigate those financially harmed by fraud was sitting empty.

"Another piece that we found is back in 2019, there was a restitution fund that was created by the legislature for the Securities Department," he said. Under Tyler's leadership, "that fund has never had money put into it. That to me is a big problem."

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