It would be cool if some New York media outlet took on insurance rates as a beat and followed what will happen to all those rate requests the state now has to approve. Sebelius said in her letter to AHIP last week that the feds had just given the states more money “to strengthen the review and transparency of proposed premiums.” Hey, that’s a good thing, at least in theory. It’s up to the media to take a look and check it out in practice.

Trudy Lieberman is a fellow at the Center for Advancing Health and a longtime contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She is the lead writer for The Second Opinion, CJR’s healthcare desk, which is part of our United States Project on the coverage of politics and policy. Follow her on Twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.