On Getting To Keep The Insurance You Like (or maybe not)

About this time last year I was visiting one of my accounts based in Toronto when one of my customers, who is a strong advocate of the Canadian health care system, asked what I thought of Obamacare. My answer: I thought there were far better ways of helping the 10 or 15% of Americans who didn’t have health insurance than forcing the other 85 – 90% to change what they had. She repeated what Obama and his minions have been saying: that we could keep our insurance (and doctor) if we liked it so what’s the big deal? Well, after the initial October roll out we’re learning that we could keep our insurance ONLY if it met the criteria laid out by Obamacare. The news media has been reporting that thousands of people have been receiving notices from their insurers that, oh, their plan doesn’t meet this minimum criteria and that the plans available on the exchanges are much more expensive and have higher deductibles.

Who could have seen that coming? Anybody with a basic understanding of Economics 101. By that I mean that the package of promises sold to us like a miracle balm (or snake oil) contained contradictory claims. We were going to save money, lower the national debt, reduce overall medical spending while covering people with pre-existing conditions and adding millions of folks who previously didn’t have insurance.

How did this happen? I think a constellation of factors made it possible for politicians to sell some people on Obamacare. (Notice I didn’t say most people because the polls have consistently shown a lack of strong public support for Obamacare. It is dropping like a rock since October 1.) One is the lack of understanding how a market works and particularly how distorted the healthcare market is. Second, the mammoth bill was too complex even for its supporters to fully understand. (Hence, Nancy Pelosi’s infamous comment about needing to pass the bill in order to find out what is in it.) Third, I think a lot of people harbor animosity for insurance companies precisely because (a) we don’t know how much medical services truly cost (see examples below) and (b) insurance companies delay or deny payments to protect their bottom line. And lastly, I’m sure there is a minority of people who think they were going to get something for almost nothing while tucking it to the big insurers. Several Obamacare supporters have voiced dismay that they didn’t think they would be the ones footing the bill only to find out, to their dismay, that the bill collector tolls for them too.

During the discussion with my customer I also mentioned that the health care system in the U.S. was far from a true free market system for a number of reasons (best covered at another time) and that having insurance cover most of normal medical expenses hides the true price from the user. I likened it to going into a grocery store and for a $20 co-pay you could fill your cart with anything you wanted, from cheap hamburger to caviar (if the store would carry it). Or it would be like going to the car dealership to get whatever work you wanted done on your car for the measly co-pay. So you could have an oil change or rebuild the engine for the same out-of-pocket cost. As a result of this arrangement there is no incentive for the customer to shop for the combination of best price and quality like we do for other goods and services. But that too is a topic for another post. For more information on this I highly recommend John Goodman’s Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis.

For a much deeper analysis I recommend Robert Tracinski's article.

Obamacare: Crony Corporatism At Its Worst

I wondered why it would take such a 2000+-page monstrosity of a bill to "cure" the ills of our healthcare system. Wouldn't it be easier to come up with something that does not disrupt what 90% of the Americans have for health insurance and deal directly with those people who do not have it? I'm thinking of something similar to what used to be called food stamps. Maybe they would be called med stamps! Or do what they do in Switzerland: provide a direct subsidy to people who cannot afford health insurance or if the cost of the insurance exceeds a certain percent of their income. One possible explanation is that Obamacare gives our wise government bureaucrats complete control over a large sector of our economy. I'm sure there's some of that motivating the drive to develop such a complicated mess of legislation.

I also figured it had to be the result of the unholy alliance we have between government and big business. (This relationship is often referred to as crony capitalism, however I prefer the term crony corporatism.) The post below by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute confirms this suspicion by providing some background on the birth (or should we say failed abortion?) of Obama care. Be sure to check out the link that Mitchell provides in his post to an article that appeared in the Washington Examiner.

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/obamacares-corrupt-conception-sleazy-gestation-and-tawdry-birth/

Thoughts on the Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare

I do not plan to provide lengthy commentary on last week’s Supreme ruling on the constitutionality of the healthcare act. Many other folks with whom I agree have spoken on the subject. However I will make a prediction: five years from now our situation with healthcare will be no better, if not worse, than it is today. And that will spur further calls for even more government intervention into the healthcare sector to "fix" the problems. This despite the fact that government has been involved in healthcare for at least 100 years in a series of actions, each of which has caused even further disruptions.

The first link from the Ludwig von Mises Institute provides an extensive list of links to various articles and studies on the effect of government's role on healthcare and how will we have now is not anywhere close to a free market in healthcare.

http://mises.org/daily/3737/Why-ObamaCare-Will-Fail-A-Reading-List

The first link in the list is an article by Murray Rothbard summarizes the history of the government’s intervention in healthcare since around 1910. http://mises.org/daily/6099/Government-Medical-Insurance

The Heritage Foundation collection of pictures and charts captures the key features of Obamacare. Http://www.heritage.org/research/projects/obamacare/obamacare-in-pictures

Robert Bidinotto identifies the collectivist premises that support the Supreme Court ruling and provides a link to his analysis of why conservatives continually lose the moral battle in these battles against the left. I strongly recommend reading both the article on his blog as well as the link to his article on “Up From Conservatism. http://bidinotto.blogspot.com/2012/06/us-constitution-rip.html

Meanwhile neo-neocon provides some interesting thoughts.

http://neoneocon.com/2012/06/30/more-reflections-on-scotus-and-obamacare-and-the-future/

http://neoneocon.com/2012/06/29/17713/

http://neoneocon.com/2012/06/29/what-hath-roberts-wrought-in-his-obamacare-decision/

http://neoneocon.com/2012/06/28/17691/

http://neoneocon.com/2012/06/29/a-new-meme-ive-noticed-today/

She also links to this analysis by Andrew C. McCarthy. http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/06/28/obamacare-ruling-pure-fraud-and-no-due-process/?singlepage=true

And finally for a counter to the moral argument Obamacare proponents unleash on anyone who dares to oppose their “noble” cause check out Dr. Paul Hsieh’s article. http://pjmedia.com/blog/can-the-moral-narrative-of-obamacare-be-defeated/

The only way Americans can protect their long-term access to quality medical care is by demanding that the government respect their freedom and individual rights. Any system of “universal” health care necessarily requires a bureaucracy to control who can receive what services and when — if only to control costs. The medical rationing in Canada and the UK are typical results. In these countries, far from being a “right,” health care becomes just another privilege to be dispensed at the discretion of the bureaucrats.

The News Media as Instructors not Reporters

This post from Ace of Spades HQ starts out with how the Washington Post buried a story about how Obamacare actually is going to increase the deficit, not lower it as was originally claimed. Further down Ace makes an interesting distinction about the role that the news media establishment believes they are fulfilling. His observations mesh with comments I’ve posted earlier about the Ruling Class. Ace’s analysis implicitly touches on the abandonment of any pretense of being objective. In our post-modern world these folks believe the truth is what they want it to be, especially if they believe it serves an end they feel is moral and justified. Just don’t ask them to objectively defend this position because, you know, objectivity is such a 20^th century, out-of-fashion notion!

This story sums up everything that is wrong with the media, and why it is dying -- and why it should die.

The media is no longer in the information business.

They are in the instruction business.

This is an important distinction.

If you're in the information business, your stock in trade is information. You have no particular concern about how that information will be received, or interpreted, or used for making political arguments. That's not your business-- you are in the business of data, not Narrative and not the internal contents of your readers' minds.

You are not your readers' minders, nor their tutors: You stand equal to them. They are citizens are you are citizens; you have no special insight into The Truth, and they no special disadvantage in discovering The Truth.

Now, if you're in the Instruction business, things are quite different. You stand not as an equal with your readers, but as a Teacher. And, worse yet, they are Children in need of your guidance.

You cannot just offer information willy-nilly to children. …

You must be protective of Children, who are, in final analysis, incompetent (legally as well as actually) individual who need to be told what to think and how to think. You cannot give them license to think whatever they like, for they are not mature enough for that.

They haven't yet learned the skill of thinking.

Thus, everything you tell a child must be with rounded corner and soft padding. Children are dangerous, after all, to themselves and others, if not properly minded at every moment.

Why do people -- and not just strong partisans, but most anyone who isn't a diehard liberal partisan -- hate the media?

Because of this, this belief of the media that we wish or need their Instruction in ordering our lives and ordering our thoughts.

But they are determined to do just that.

…

This isn't even restricted to news -- the media's strong belief that it is the Thin Black and White Line between semi-retarded barbarians from Idiocracy and civilization is present in films and fictions, too.

Every goddamned movie is a children's movie, with a soporofic, corporate-approved Moral (don't hate strangers; be yourself!).

Even movies for adults. Especially movies for adults.

This is called "being responsible." It's also called "being condescending" and "making infantile, bad art," but they prefer "being responsible."

How Deval Patrick Gutted Romneycare's Market-Oriented Health Reforms by Avik Roy

This article in Forbes on what happened in Massachusetts after Romney care bill passed is enlightening given that this subject most likely will be hotly debated during the upcoming Presidential election.



Here is a key quote.

And while Democrats have sought to credit (or blame) Romney for the passage of Obamacare, it is more accurate to say that the federal Affordable Care Act is modeled after the Democratically implemented version of the Massachusetts law, as opposed to the one that Romney had sought.

Read the rest of the article for the grisly details.

Economic Recovery Stalled After Obamacare Passed - James Sherk

James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation released a report which indicates that Economic Recovery Stalled After Obamacare Passed. The primary reasons are outlined below.

The law discourages employers from hiring in several ways:

• Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
• Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
• Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

There is a telling graph showing how job growth per month flattened almost immediately after the passage of the bill. Admittedly that by itself doesn't prove that Obamacare was the culprit. I think Sherk's explanation makes sense though. In addition in discussions with my accounts almost every one has said their sales have improved but they're reluctant to start hiring again because of the uncertainty of what other regulations might be imposed on them. The known affects of Obamacare and the unknown future regulations makes for a potent double whammy on job creation.

When I mention this to liberal friends here in Massachusetts their typical reaction is to shrug it off as if to say “Oh well, too bad. Those businessmen will think of something.” It’s as though they believe businesses have unlimited resources, an infinite capacity to bear any burden and an unfair advantage over us proles. In one sense this is true, for those crony capitalists who curry the favor of their government buddies to form an unholy alliance that protects the businesses from competition. But I don’t believe this applies to most businesses who don’t have an inroad to the Capitol and who have to find ways to absorb the constantly increasing financial and regulatory demands while still making a profit and declaring a dividend (if they’re a publicly held company) to their shareholders.

Health reform unhealthy for hospitals - baltimoresun.com

More evidence of the potential unintended consequences of the Affordable Care Act. As often is the case the results of policies create the exact opposite of the intent behind them.

Over the last few months, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has exempted a long list of unions and employers from an Affordable Care Act provision that would have made it too costly for them to continue some of their health care insurance plans. But, in sharp contrast, HHS apparently doesn't intend to do anything at all about a new health reform mandate that could eventually force hundreds of badly needed U.S. hospitals to shut their doors.

Many of these hospitals are already struggling to make ends meet because Medicare only reimburses them for 90 percent of what it costs them to take care of Medicare patients. But, instead of helping them out, this rule change does the opposite. In a misguided effort to pressure them to become more efficient, it arbitrarily assumes that they can achieve the same productivity savings as the economy at large and decrees that these hypothetical cost savings must be deducted from any Medicare reimbursements they receive after September.

Best health care political pull can buy by Dr. Paul Hsieh

This article by Dr. Paul Hsieh explains how Obamacare will not only shrink competition in health care services it will lead to another kind of undesirable competition.

Yet while Obamacare is suppressing genuine marketplace competition for medical services, it is also spurring a more sinister facsimile of competition - for political favors. Employers and insurers with sufficient political clout can save money by obtaining a much-coveted "waiver," exempting them from onerous new insurance regulations. The 222 current recipients of such waivers include popular employers such as McDonald's and Universal Orlando as well as the Service Employees Benefit Fund, which insures members of the Service Employees International Union (a major political supporter of the Obama administration). Because these waivers are granted at the discretion of the secretary of health and human services, they create easy opportunities for political favoritism and corruption.

Nor will the political favor-seeking be limited to insurance waivers. If the Obamacare individual insurance mandate survives current legal challenges, it will also spur a lobbying frenzy from special-interest groups seeking to include their pet benefits in the mandatory insurance package Americans must purchase.

Five Reasons We Think RECs Are RECkless by Houston Neal

Houston Neal, Director of Marketing for Software Advice posted this poll regarding Regional Extension Centers.

Three weeks ago we launched a poll asking, “Will Regional Extension Centers deliver on their mission?” With the help of fellow bloggers, we received a total of 87 responses from physicians, health IT insiders and other health care professionals. Thank you to those who participated and to those who helped us spread the word about the poll.

One of the major components of the the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was the allocation of $19 billion to jump start the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). One of the major uses of those funds was the establishment of Regional Extension Centers (RECs) to support EHR adoption by primary care physicians.

Read more: http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/medical/five-reasons-we-think-recs-are-reckless-1092310/#ixzz13CUhFBX5

Massachusetts Insurers Post Big Losses - Business - The Atlantic

Massachusetts Insurers Post Big Losses - Business - The Atlantic

Here are key quotes from the beginning and end of McArdle's blog entry.

When MassCare passed, it was supposed to lower the average cost of health care by getting relatively cheap young people into the system, and ending the inefficiencies of caring for the uninsured. Unfortunately, it hasn't quite worked out that way. ... There was a brief improvement in insurance prices for the individual market, because Massachusetts, with its community rating and
guaranteed issue, had had a pretty sizable problem with adverse selection. But after a few years, insurance costs were still marching briskly upward, rates were among the highest in the country, and the system was putting heavy pressure on a budget that was already strained to the limit by the recession.

There's a depressing possibility, even a likelihood, that this is our
future. It's hard to simultaneously expand demand, while lowering the
incentives for supply (i.e. Medicare reimbursements), without having some pretty dramatic mismatches between the two. There's an old adage common in restaurants and engineering that goes "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick Two." Change that middle word to "Universal" and you've got a pretty good summation of the problem that Massachusetts now faces--and that the rest of us soon will.

Who are the 47 million uninsured?

This site contains some interesting facts regarding the hordes of uninsureds on whose behalf our friends in the government have foisted the behemoth healthcare bill upon us.

http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/who-are-the-47-million-uninsured/

• 9,000,000 Millionaires
• 27,000,000 people who make more than $50,000 per year, but choosenot to get insurance
• 22,000,000 Young adults who can afford insurance, but choose not to
• 14,000,000 People who can already get medicaid, but choose not to
• 11,000,000 Illegal Immigrants
• 23,000,000 People who are actually insured. That’s right; you’ve been lied to…surprised?

Cahill: Mass-type Care Could 'wipe Out' Economy - WBZ NEWSRADIO 1030

Cahill: Mass-type Care Could 'wipe Out' Economy - WBZ NEWSRADIO 1030

The Pro-Life Election of Scott Brown by William R Thomas

The Atlas Society has posted an article on the recent Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts to fill the senate seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. The title of the article has another meaning than you might think at first glance.

Here are some excerpts.

Republican Scott Brown has been elected to fill the U.S. Senate seat for Massachusetts that arch-Liberal Ted Kennedy had filled. Startlingly, Brown ran on a fairly free-market platform, advocating tax cuts and opposing the Federal takeover of health care. He contrasted with his opponent, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, not only on the economic issues, but also in advocating the ardent prosecution of the war on terror. The only policy they shared was a pro-abortion rights stance. But the election was “pro-life” in a deeper moral sense.

...

[O]n January 19, 2010, the people of the bluest of blue states declared, once again, that America should be the home of opportunity, growth, and wealth—of life, in other words. Let’s hope everyone in Washington heard that loud and clear.

The Health-Care Backlash by Peter Wehner

This article by Peter Wehner (a hat tip to Robert Bidinotto for finding this) has some interesting observations on the nature of Obama, his administration and its policies.

The collateral damage to Obama from this bill is enormous. More than any candidate in our lifetime, Obama won based on the aesthetics of politics. It wasn’t because of his record; he barely had one. And it wasn’t because of his command of policy; few people knew what his top three policy priorities were. It was based instead on the sense that he was something novel, the embodiment of a “new politics” – mature, high-minded and gracious, intellectually serious. That was the core of his speeches and his candidacy. In less than a year, that core has been devoured, most of all by this health-care process.

Mr. Obama has shown himself to be a deeply partisan and polarizing figure. (“I have never been asked to engage in a single serious negotiation on any issue, nor has any other Republican,” Senator McCain reported over the weekend.) The lack of transparency in this process has been unprecedented and bordering on criminal. The president has been deeply misleading in selling this plan. Lobbyists, a bane of Obama during the campaign, are having a field day.

President Obama may succeed in passing a terribly unpopular piece of legislation – but in the process, he has shattered his carefully cultivated image. It now consists of a thousand shards.

… Mr. Obama has revived the worst impressions of the Democratic party – profligate and undisciplined, arrogant, lovers of big government, increasers of taxes. The issues and narrative for American politics in the foreseeable future has been set — limited government versus exploding government, capitalism versus European style socialism, responsible and measured policies versus reckless and radical ones.

NOW we must make our goal-line stand against ObamaCare! By Robert Bidinotto

Friends,

After months of manipulations and horse-trading, the Senate version of ObamaCare is the monstrosity that Congress has now come down to debating. Any compromise the Senate reaches with the even-worse House version, in conference committees, will only move the bill farther to the left, by strengthening the "public option" and reintroducing taxpayer-funded abortions.

If there is one article you need to read about ObamaCare, and to circulate to your friends and family, this is it:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/10/the_sheer_arrogance_of_obamacare_99479.html

In this article, Robert Tracinski presents a concise, hard-hitting summary of the essential horrors in the Senate ObamaCare bill. He cites three provisions we must focus on, and they are: (1) "guaranteed issue" and "community rating," (2) the "individual mandate," and (3) the government-run "insurance exchange." These three legs of the ObamaCare stool will absolutely bankrupt private insurers, eventually driving everyone into socialized medicine run by the government:

* "Guaranteed issue" and "community rating" will compel insurers to cover already-sick and high-risk individuals, which will force them to raise insurance premiums sky-high for all the rest of us. To avoid paying those soaring premiums, millions won't bother to buy insurance until they're already sick—which will reduce the number of people actually paying for insurance, while simultaneously causing the number of freeloaders to skyrocket.

* "The individual mandate" will impose a tax on the uninsured that is far less than the premiums they'd otherwise pay. This means that millions will choose to remain uninsured, while being forced to subsidize others with their penalty tax—that is, until they get sick, at which time they'll buy a policy, and then milk the system themselves.

* "The insurance exchange" will put an insurance dictator—with the Orwellian title of "Health Choices Commissioner"—in charge of the content of every new insurance policy issued. The exchanges will outlaw policies that offer low-cost, high-deductible catastrophic coverage, instead forcing everyone to buy high-cost comprehensive plans.

In sum, the bill will eliminate health-insurance choices and competition, raise premiums astronomically, and encourage people to demand medical benefits that they haven't remotely paid for. This is a recipe for complete ruin. It will crush our medical care system under a burden of millions of patients who aren't paying their way. It will destroy the private insurance industry, push its former customers into a government-regimented "single payer" system—which will be so deep in red ink that the government will then slash payments to doctors and hospitals, while rationing medical services.

ObamaCare is a wrecking ball poised to crush our medical system. You need to raise your voice against this threat NOW. Here is what you need to do:

1. Please print out Tracinski’s article, or copy it (with the URL link), and mail or email it to people far and wide.

2. Contact your two senators here: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm Demand that they vote against this monstrosity, citing the main points made in the article.

3. Finally, also send calls and letters to the following key "swing" senators, making the preceding points:

Democrats:
Sen. Blanche Lincoln
Sen. Evan Bayh
Sen. Mary Landrieu
Sen. Joseph Lieberman
Sen. Ben Nelson

Republicans:
Sen. George Voinovich
Sen. Olympia Snowe
Sen. Susan Collins

We cannot afford a single GOP defector from the opposition. However, if we can peel off even ONE Democrat (most likely candidates would be Lieberman or Lincoln), then Senate majority leader Harry Reid won't have enough votes to avoid a Republican filibuster. So, we must stiffen the spines of the Republicans, and try to reach wavering Dems.

Even if this vote can be delayed into 2010, its chances of passage are much lower.

So, CONTACT THEM NOW!

Thanks for your help. And feel free to forward this message to others.

The Cold Heart of ObamaCare

This article points to some provisions in the pending health care bill (I mistyped it as "bull". I shoud have kept it that way!) The Cold Heart of ObamaCare

A few key quotes.

To call the dangers of this legislation "death panels" obscures the real-life consequences to Americans, not only the elderly, of a federal government-run health care bureaucracy. In the Senate bill, for instance, Medicare doctors whose treatments each year of certain, mostly elderly, patients costs more than a set government figure will be punished by losing part of their own incomes.

Not only Medicare doctors will be monitored for their cost effectiveness. In the House bill, as the libertarian Cato Institute's health care specialist Michael Tanner explains, "111 government agencies, boards, commissions and other bureaucracies - all overseen by a new health care czar," the commissioner of Health Care Choices, will keep watch on what the president has called excessive, wasteful health care expenditures.

Is there anything you want to say to your representatives in the House or Senate before the final vote is taken? If you don't act urgently now, you may become part of another collective statistic - American annual death rates.

I'm scared, and I do mean to scare you.

We do not elect the president and Congress to decide how short our lives will be. That decision is way above their pay grades.

Charles Krauthammer : Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right - Townhall.com

Here is a good, brief analysis of the pending health care bill.

Charles Krauthammer : Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right - Townhall.com

Day for ObamaCare

The first part of this post comes from an e-mail by Robert Bidinotto. It is followed by an e-mail I've sent to my representatives. It uses Robert's words with some of my own added to the end.

Dear Friends,

If you haven’t yet contacted your congressman (or even if you have) to oppose ObamaCare, TODAY is perhaps the last day that wavering representatives will be making up their minds.

By all reports, the House vote this weekend will be very close. Just one or two congressmen could tip the balance for or against this horrible piece of legislation. We need to show immediate, overwhelming opposition to this monstrosity.

PLEASE do what millions of other patriotic Americans have done. Call or email your congressman or congresswoman NOW.

To obtain his or her contact information, click on the link below, or copy it into your web browser:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

And if you run a website or blog, please post that contact information and urge your readers to weigh in.

Thanks so much for your consideration.

Robert

I shamelessly borrowed the wording Robert used in writing his representatives to contact mine in Massachusetts. I added a final paragraph of my own. The text is provided below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s now clear: Both the House's and Senate's pending health-insurance bills betray the promises and contradict the claims of their architects.

“ObamaCare,” in either version, will not provide “universal, affordable insurance,” increase “choice and competition,” or remain “deficit-neutral.” Instead, it will create a gargantuan, unaffordable, trillion-dollar entitlement monstrosity. It will explode our soaring deficits and impose huge new tax burdens on our struggling economy -- and on millions of people like me.

It also will create perverse incentives: Subsidies will inflate demand for medical services, while taxes and regulations will discourage doctors, hospitals, and inventors from providing them. That inevitably will lead to shortages, waiting lists, and rationing.

It will deprive us of choices and competition: “Mandates” will force employers to offer costly policies and force individuals (like me) to buy them. Meanwhile, private insurers will drown in seas of red ink.

The repeatedly stated goal of ObamaCare’s proponents, including the President and many congressmen, is to push us all gradually into “single-payer,” government-run health care. These bills are meant to do exactly that. They will bankrupt private insurers, wipe out our existing policies, and undermine the quality and affordability of health care.

This legislative initiative is destructive in principle: The entire coercive, bureaucratic approach is dead wrong. These bills therefore cannot be amended, fixed, or salvaged; they must be scrapped entirely.

Yes, we need health-insurance reform; but true reform must be based on the principles of free-market competition:

• allowing individuals to purchase insurance from competing companies across state lines, with the same tax-deductibility employers enjoy;

• letting individuals buy low-cost, catastrophic coverage by freeing insurers from legal requirements to offer only high-priced, comprehensive policies;

• enacting tort reforms to eliminate the costly practice of “defensive medicine.”

These steps would expand coverage to millions, while reducing costs to employers, policy-holders, and taxpayers.

I know my opinion won’t necessarily change your position. I hope that it’s clear that there also is a moral premise behind my opposition to this effort to foist an unwelcome change on the vast majority of us voters who want the freedom to chose on such an important, literally life changing issue. I’d rather create some kind of welfare program that buys insurance for those who can’t afford it than making wholesale changes in our semi-free market system that will reduce the quality and quantity of health care for everyone.

Respectfully,

Henry Scuoteguazza

The Truth About Health-Insurance Industry Profits by Robert Bidinotto

In a rare, refreshing example of real journalism in the mainstream media,Associated Press actually fact-checked Democrat claims that insurance companies are making obscene profits, while they let sick people die. According to this narrative, we need a "public option" in health-care reform to compete with these rapacious companies, to drive down their outrageously high premiums, and to "keep them honest."

But, what are the facts? A.P. checked and discovered its all a pack of lies:

Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace. Such a public option would force private insurers to trim profits and restrain premiums to compete, the argument goes. This would "keep insurance companies honest," says President Barack Obama. . . .

But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. A look at some claims, and the numbers:

THE CLAIMS

_"I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers'"obscene profits."

_"Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed." Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

_"Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." A MoveOn.org ad.

THE NUMBERS:

Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better - drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.

HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That's a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.

The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.

UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.

In short, private health-insurers are already squeezed to marginal profitability. Knowing this, what do you suppose is the motive of Democrats -- whose leadership, from the White House down, is dominated by advocates of "single-payer" government-run health insurance -- in wanting to further squeeze private insurers? When they say they want "Medicare for all Americans," what do you suppose they wish to happen to private insurers?

Duh.

This debate is not about controlling health-care costs. It is about controlling your health care -- period. Share the facts with your congressman and senators, and let them know that their political futures depend on their strangling the ObamaCare monster in its crib.

Megan McArdle's Controlling Healthcare Costs The American Way: Not Doing It

Megan McArdle posts an excellent analysis why we should not believe the mantra we're hearing that the proposed health care bill will save money or at worst be revenue neutral. As she points out,

we've got a single payer system, called Medicare. It negotiates huge cost discounts with providers. It has low administrative costs. It has a gigantic apparatus to evaluate reimbursements for various treatments. It has . . . a faster rate of per-capita cost growth than the rest of the health care system, according toa CBO report issued by one Peter Orszag.

After showing how health care rate of increase in costs in Massachusetts have accelerated she asks a good question:

so I'll turn it around on reformers: why do you think that we can control costs, given that we couldn't at the state level? Massachusetts is a very liberal state, a very rich state, and it started out with a relatively low proportion of its citizenry uninsured. Proponents of reform often say it has to be done at a national level because states can't borrow money in downturns, but this doesn't explain why the spending side is headed through the roof.