Here's why NY health insurance premiums are tumbling

Nearly all stories about the health-care overhaul and insurance premiums tend to be about the cost of health insurance rising. That's what makes this front page story in the New York Times all the more unexpected: "Health Plan Cost For New Yorkers Set to Fall 50 Percent." A headline about the health care law driving down premiums, by this level of magnitude, is a rarity. But it shouldn't be shocking: New York has, for two decades now, had the highest individual market premiums in the country. A lot of it seems to trace back to a law passed in 1993, which required insurance plans to accept all applicants, regardless of how sick or healthy they were.