There is no question that we need changes in our health sector. But numerous independent studies have shown that the Affordable Care Act will fail to achieve its goals and will cause harm by trying to inflict too much change too suddenly. Medicaid and job-based health insurance are just two examples. As many as 25 million people will be added to Medicaid’s rolls; this means those already on the program will be competing for the limited number of physicians, especially specialists, who treat Medicaid patients, making it even more difficult for those on the program to access care.

This Policy Brief provides an overview of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and perspective on some of its key provisions affecting health insurance.  Following a synopsis of the main problems that confront U.S. health care and insurance, it considers the extent to which the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will affect those problems, including the ACA’s minimum medical loss ratio and rate review requirements for health insurers.

This Policy Brief identifies ten flaws in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and proposes a series of remedies based on repeal and/or alteration of the legislation as it exists.

Perhaps the most important report that the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) will ever make is the report on the system of state-based insurance regulation.  By the end of January 2012, the FIO Director is to submit a report to Congress recommending changes to modernize and improve insurance regulation in the United States.  This essentially means the FIO is being asked to propose its own mission and scope of operations and to lay out a road map to guide public policy decision-making moving forward in a major part of the financial services sector. 

Research seeking to understand financial literacy and to enhance it through training or education is receiving greater attention and emphasis from policymakers. Unfortunately, relatively little of this research has focused on insurance products and consumers. This policy brief reviews what is known about consumer knowledge, understanding and capability in insurance markets, focusing on two surveys of consumers’ understanding of insurance policies, terms, and concepts.

The paper looks at the changes in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation  assessment process since the passage of the Dodd-Frank legislation. It outlines some of the changes made to the insurance premium rates as well as the calculation of the deposit assessment base, and examines how the burden of payment is now more equitably distributed between large and small banks. 

This paper explores the evolution of American economic policy since the New Deal.  It argues that an accumulation of statist institutions and policies since World War II have led to the latest financial crisis in the housing sector.

Despite the fact that it grew out of a financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act was not the result of a bipartisan consensus. It received no Republican votes in the House of Representatives and only three Republican votes in the Senate. There are repeated statements by Republicans that they would like to repeal the act of they had the opportunity. One of the reasons for Republican opposition is the fact that the act seemed to be a regulatory overreach not warranted by the circumstances.

This paper discusses a number of key issues regarding implementation by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) of the Dodd-Frank Act’s provisions affecting insurance...

This paper examines consumer protection regulation in insurance markets and discusses how regulation could be made more efficient and robust. The paper argues that regulatory costs could be lowered and effectiveness enhanced by better targeting regulations to address market failures...

Since passage of the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the government has been explicitly and implicitly regulating the compensation of top managers at a number of U.S. banks.  In addition, bank regulators have added evaluations of bank management compensation packages to the list of factors taken into account in supervisory safety-and-soundness examinations...

On November 12, 1999, President Clinton signed the most significant piece of financial services regulation to be enacted since the Great Depression, at least up to that time. When the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, better known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), was signed, the financial services industry faced strong pressures for deregulation...

The author reviews the legislative framework of financial regulation, assesses public and private sector accountability for the economic trauma loosed in 2008, and appraises the legislative aftermath.  His thesis is that the economy and the financial security of the country were unnecessarily jeopardized by the unchecked greed of a few...

This article asserts that, in dealing with the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) has placed its role as monetary agency and de facto steward of the market for U.S. Treasury debt ahead of its statutory responsibility for ensuring the soundness of the private banks...

To be effective, programs of regulatory reform must address the incentive conflicts that intensify financial risk-taking and undermine government insolvency detection and crisis management. Subsidies to risk taking that large institutions extract from the financial safety net encourage managers to make their firms riskier, harder to supervise, and politically and administratively more difficult to fail and unwind...

The financial market events in September 2008 seem unprecedented in modern times. While other systemically important events happened in the last thirty years affecting U.S. markets, the one month turmoil and government response is without equal. As a result, insurance industry economists have been dusting off dictionaries and looking up what systemic risk really means... 

The causes of the financial crisis of 2007-09 are many and varied.  Indeed, the crisis may be viewed as the product of a perfect storm.  This paper identifies the major culprits or sinners of the U.S. crisis and enumerates their more important sins... 

In the debate over the proposed establishment of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, much attention has been given to discussion of whether consumers are irrational or incompetent and therefore need paternalistic regulators to look after them, and whether inadequate consumer protection regulation was a contributor to the financial crisis. Arguments over these questions are misplaced.

This paper reviews what economists have learned about Internet banking.  The paper begins by surveying evidence regarding the fundamental motivations for banks to offer services via the Internet and for their customers to utilize the services.  It considers the experience of and future prospects for so-called “pure-play” Internet banks that conduct virtually all dealings with their customers via the Web...

In recent years, the need for financial education has gained the attention of a wide range of entities including banking companies, government agencies, grass-roots consumer and community interest groups, universities, schools, and other organizations. Numerous factors have led to a complex, specialized financial services marketplace that requires consumers to be actively engaged if they are to manage their finances effectively...

Ever since severe turmoil enveloped the financial markets in the fall of 2008, commentators have blamed deregulation of the financial system, and specifically the supposed “repeal” of the Glass-Steagall Act by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, for the crisis. This has led many to advocate a restoration of the separation of commercial and investment banking that was supposedly the essence of the Glass-Steagall Act...

Officials must show that they understand why and how the public's confidence in the federal government's ability to manage financial turmoil was lost. Leaders of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must face up...

As recovery from the present economic crisis begins, policymakers must address what reforms will be made in financial system in order to prevent the reoccurrence of a similar crisis in the future. What will Congress do in response? In terms of long-term financial reform, what is to be expected from Congress is passage of legislation...

This paper seeks to review events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, including the massive government intervention into the U.S. financial markets, and then asks some questions and makes some recommendations about changes in specific areas of business practice...

Much work has been done in recent years on the subject of insurance regulation and capital requirements, and the process of regulatory reform will continue.  It behooves insurance supervisors to take a step back, revisit...

The Optional Federal Chartering (OFC) proposal introduced in the last session of Congress may have been the right bill for the introduction of federal regulation of the insurance industry at the turn of the 20th century.  However, the current OFC proposal shows...

This policy brief reviews recent studies that have sought to apply analysis of network externalities and the theory of two-sided markets to card payment networks, and it evaluates the public policy implications of this body of work.  Three general conclusions emerge...

The application of U.S. antitrust policy toward mergers in the banking industry is based on past research suggesting that there is a trade-off between adverse effects on consumer welfare...

This policy brief evaluates the banking and policy implications of 2006 Congressional legislation authorizing the Federal Reserve to pay interest on reserves held at Federal Reserve banks beginning in October 2011.  This upcoming policy change has received remarkably little attention...

Despite the considerable media attention given to the collapse of the market for complex structured assets that contain subprime mortgages,...

S. 40, the National Insurance Act of 2007, requires the development of a system of Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) for federally chartered insurers.  This paper discusses the issues associated with developing a system of PCA and makes recommendations...

Debates continue among Congressional members and industry leaders regarding the form of insurance regulation in the U.S. Regardless the form of regulation they support – state regulation, national regulation or optional federal chartering – they all agree that the insurance industry must be subject to close regulation/supervision...