For reasons unbeknownst to me, NY is one of the most expensive locations in the US for health insurance. My wife and I are both healthy and have been able to buy good insurance with reasonable deductions for around $250 / month total in CA, CO, and OR. But I can't find anything in NY for less than 4x-6x that much. I find it hard to believe that the cost of care in NY is that much higher than in CA, so I'm assuming that some kind of moronic government meddling designed to keep insurance affordable has once again resulted in screwing over the people it was supposed to help.
Unfortunately, the article doesn't answer the question of why NY had starkly higher insurance premiums before those two rules were implemented in 2009. I was purchasing insurance in NY in 2002-2005 and premiums were 3-4 times what they are in other states. This was before 2009, and partially before Timothy's law, and all that.
I think, perhaps, the fact that NY has such comprehensive support at the low end of the income distribution, through medicaid, family health plus, healthy NY, etc., causes all of those young, healthy but lower-income people to drop out of the market for insurance. This leaves higher-income and older people in the self-insured and employer-sponsored pools, driving up the base rates.
In any event, a study by the Manhattan Institute, as referenced by the article, isn't very trustworthy. It would be very hard for them to release a study that said anything different, which to me means that there is inherent bias.
EDIT: While not an unbiased source, this article indicates that my assumption above is exactly right: http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/01/new-york-states-highly-reg...