March 10--'Laws are like sausages," Otto von Bismarck said. "It's better not to see them being made."

Too many of us take the great German statesman's advice. I suspect he gave it to keep the public's eyes out of his own political machinations. It doesn't serve anyone but the politicians who are making the sausage.

As ugly as the view can be, we need to be political junkies to some degree, because we need to know what our elected representatives are up to. Too often, they're up to no good, or at the very least, making laws that don't serve their constituents, but rather cater to special interests at their constituents' expense. Our lawmakers do serve the people who pay close attention to them. Most often, it's the well-heeled special interests who expect favorable treatment in return for their lobbying and generous contributions.

Here's a proposed change in law that every one of us -- at least those of us who own a motor vehicle -- needs to know about: Sen. Wesley Meredith's bill that would dramatically alter the way North Carolina regulates car insurance. The bill restricts the degree to which the state insurance commissioner can control insurance rates. Meredith says his bill will create "a more competitive, free-market system that reduces bureaucracy and eliminates unnecessary costs. Government has no business dictating how insurance companies set their rates and has no business requiring them to do so collectively."

Sounds good, doesn't it? The free market benefits us all. Just look at how cheap T-shirts became in the Big Box stores after we dropped trade protection and eliminated the American textile industry. We all benefited. Well, maybe not the textile workers, but hey, it's a changing world.

Seriously, we do over-regulate too many businesses, just as we overdo incentives and tax breaks. So in theory, what Meredith is doing (mirrored by a House bill filed last week) sounds about right, especially in an increasingly conservative state.

Except for one thing: North Carolina's insurance-regulation system gives us the lowest car-insurance rates in the South and on the Eastern Seaboard and the seventh-lowest in the country. That takes away a bit of the pain when the bill comes due, doesn't it?

And do you wonder what a free market will do? So do I. Because it's already a free market, except the insurance commissioner has the right to reject unnecessarily high rate hikes. But something like 160 insurance companies are already competing for our business here, and they're already free to set lower prices to attract more business, which is what many of them do.

Meredith and his supporters -- most of the big insurance companies except Nationwide, which opposes the bill -- say our present system has a hidden surcharge that has cost drivers hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a subsidy for liability coverage for high-risk drivers. But it's hardly a big hit. It tops out at $17 on current policies and will drop to a maximum of $12 in April. That's a pretty tiny slice of my premium. In 2010, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the national average premium was $907. In North Carolina, it was $707. So if we end up with the national average, my premium will go up $200 or more, but I'll be grateful that I'm no longer shelling out 12 bucks to subsidize lousy drivers? I don't like that tradeoff.

I'm not sure why Meredith chose to be so generous to insurance companies. His take from individuals and PACs in the industry was in the tens of thousands last year, but that's hardly the big-dog category of his backers, who tend more toward the real-estate and development businesses.

But I am sure the bill won't be nearly as good for drivers as it is for Big Insurance.

Fortunately, Meredith's senate colleague, Tom Apodaca, filed a pair of bills last week that will compete with the Meredith measures. They leave the insurance commissioner's power in place but do allow insurers to offer more innovative and competitive products in this market.

Meredith and Apodaca are co-chairs of the Senate Insurance Committee. But Apodaca is also chairman of the Rules Committee, which has a big role in deciding which legislation lives and which dies. This is one time when Apodaca should be self-serving, move his bill forward and leave Meredith's for the cleaning crew.

So, there's your weekly sausage recipe. We saw the senate make two of them. One will make us sick, and the other will make us healthy. Let's make sure the right one gets tossed out. And make sure the chef knows your choice, because the fat cats in the fancy dining room have already placed their orders.

Tim White is the Observer's editorial page editor. He can be reached at 486-3504 or twhite@fayobserver.com. You can discuss this column online by going to fayobserver.com/opinion and clicking on today's column.

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