Posted in politics and current events

I've been watching the debate on health care reform with great concern.  This article  from the Washington Examiner does an excellent job of challenging conservatives to fight for real solutions instead of defending the insurance companies.  Here are some excerpts along with my thoughts.

"Insurance companies lobby for big-government regulations, subsidies, mandates, and tax-code distortions that funnel them money, keep out competition, and stultify innovation. These policies preserve the employer-based health-care system that mocks the idea of free-market competition. Then they cry "unfair competition" when government threatens to encroach on their government-protected monopolies."

One, seemingly unrelated, change we could make is to pass the fairtax so that all health care spending is made with pre-tax dollars.  This would eliminate the disadvantage that workers who must buy their own health insurance have under the current tax system.   We certainly could change the income tax system to remove this disadvantage but other advantages of the fairtax would stimulate the economy and provide more spendable income to the average American family making healthcare and all of the other expenses of living more affordable without tax subsidies or additional regulations.

"This is an industry that thrives on government protection. But still many conservatives and Republicans stand up for it and speak as if we have an obligation to protect it. We don't.

Shadegg agrees: "I don't think that they are our friends, and that we ought to be protecting them."

While a government insurance option should be opposed, we should not defend their right to exist, but instead we ought to be threatening their near-monopolies with a force as powerful as the federal government: the free market."

Free market loving conservatives need to pressure our representatives to offer real free market solutions instead of defending the insurance companies.  Gov't should be neutral in the battle for companies to make a profit.  Companies must provide a service or product at a price people are willing to pay without gov't forcible limiting people's choices.  What would a true free market health care industry look like??  Here are some possibilities the article's author offers for our consideration.

"A freer market might yield a more retail-oriented health-care market in which insurance is used more as insurance--guarding against large, unexpected expenses--and less as a way of pre-paying for health care. Such insurers would have to actually compete on price and on quality of service. Current law disadvantages such plans.

Alternatively, a freer market could yield more Kaiser Permanentes: you buy in at a set price, and they provide all your health-care needs, giving the company an incentive to actually keep you healthy at the lowest cost."

There will always be those who can't afford things they need and that includes health care but opening the industry to true free market forces can make it affordable for the vast majority of working Americans.  Our current system where health care is unaffordable for even middle class families isn't sensible and makes it harder to confront the issues facing the least fortunate among us.