Dorothy Patil, a former U.S. senator from Michigan. “I don’t think you can really make a determination of their impact because they are so variable.”

The study, conducted by researchers at Tulane University and the University of Denver, looked at the overall impact of the health industry in the United States over 20 years. That’s long enough for federal regulators to pass rules, and they’re often adopted without much comment from the public. And many of them require insurers to report on what actions they take to make sure their plans aren’t a financial burden.

In many cases, it wasn’t clear whether the new rule went too far in restricting what consumers could buy on their health plans. In other cases, it did little to curb the excess.

For example, the federal rule in effect last year ordered that health plans must offer coverage of abortion drugs unless it’s also covered by a separate, separate plan, like a plan for a pediatrician. The plan in question, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma, said it wasn’t involved with any abortion drugs. But after the new rule went into effect, the Oklahoma exchange said the drug was now part of the plans because they’re covering it now.

In other cases, the industry didn’t address a problem as severe as the rising prevalence of HIV/AIDS that some researchers and activists say has led to the spread of the virus.

Among the rule’s toughest terms: It requires health plans covering adults to offer plan designs that allow participants to buy policies with high deductibles and high prices.

At the beginning of last year, insurers in nine states said they would offer plans in those states that complied with the new rule. Others have since said they wouldn’t comply as mandated, but would do so in the future.

But while the new rule doesn’t address any single aspect of the problem, it’s the culmination of years of pressure from insurers, researchers and activists to do something. Their arguments against the mandate echo those at every level of government who say that allowing people to buy health insurance plans with higher deductibles and to cover other preventative care is a basic human right.

And they argue that the mandate, if allowed to stand, would have an immediate effect that insurers wouldn’t be able to counter. For instance, it would force insurers to raise premiums or cut coverage for many people who need that coverage, leaving fewer affordable options before an uninsured