The bill allowing insurance companies to start selling "a la carte insurance policies" without state-mandated coverages, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Legislative Reference Bureau, creates a process in which consumers would receive a form with their applications listing the premium costs each mandate would add to their policies. They would also get information about the risks for not including various mandates. Customers could then pick and choose which policies they want.

The second bill would allow out-of-state health insurers to offer plans in Wisconsin that do not conform to the state's mandates. They would only need to comply with whatever health insurance mandates are required in their home states. Then, according to Tim Stumm's piece on the legislation in Wisconsin Health News, in order to maintain the competitiveness of Wisconsin insurers, our insurance commissioner could waive state mandates so state insurers could offer similar policies.

Critics of similar proposals, which Republicans have introduced in the past, say that they will create a dangerous cycle in which the healthiest consumers choose the newly available, cheaper policies, driving up rates for everybody else left in the pool of people buying the more inclusive policies.