The reason the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce is not to enable it to intrude into every nook and cranny of our national life, as modern jurisprudence holds, but rather to keep state governments from interfering with that commerce.

The reason the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce is not to enable it to intrude into every nook and cranny of our national life, as modern jurisprudence holds, but rather to keep state governments from interfering with that commerce. States' regulation of the insurance industry has become a powerful hindrance to interstate commerce: Companies have to deal with a welter of state rules; lifeinsurance policies sometimes have to be changed if the policyholder moves. One solution to the problem is to allow companies that do business in multiple states to choose to be regulated by the federal government instead of the states. The existence of a choice will generate competition, thus restraining any regulators from going too far. Sens. John Sununu and Tim Johnson, a Republican and a Democrat respectively, have introduced legislation to create this federal option. Some small insurers dislike the bill because they are cozy with their state regulators and do not want to have to compete with national companies. To our mind, that's an argument for the bill, not against it.