Real Health Care Reform

Listening to the radio tonight, I heard a senator say that the so called public option will “inject competition” into the marketplace, to drive down prices. If they are successful, we should have them inject extra competition everywhere. I, for one, would like cheaper microbrews.

Its too bad we don’t require our Congressional representatives to pass an economics test before we give them the authority that we do.

One cannot inject competition. To increase competition, you must instead remove barriers. Do that, and competition rushes in all by itself. If competition does not exist, it is because something is keeping it out.

In most of the country, there is in fact a lot of competition among health insurance companies. In some states though, there are only one or two companies writing most of the health insurance. Yet hardly anyone asks why this is the case. (more…)

Its interesting watching the healthcare debate. The biggest problem is the runaway costs, yet the current proposals do little if anything to reign in spending.

Of course, politicians always like to act like they’re giving you something, before they take it away. What will they be taking away? Oh, our money in the form of higher taxes and higher premiums, and our access to quality health care in the form of long waits and other rations on care.

So let’s all ponder how higher premiums will affect the number of uninsured. Currently, a third of all policies sold to people who previously had no coverage are high-deductible (low cost) HSA-qualified plans.

That’s about 1 million people who now have coverage because of availability of these plans. (more…)