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Health insurance is cheap in some states. For example, people in Indiana can choose between 43 plans costing less than $5,400 annually. The average medical plan in New Jersey costs $37,164 per year! Why the difference? By comparison, Indiana has far fewer corporate welfare mandates dictating what health insurance must cover. If the New Jersey family could buy medical insurance from an Indiana provider, they'd save over $31,000 a year! Extend this to the entire country and the results would be dramatic!
The high cost of health insurance in certain states (such as New Jersey) isn't because of any flaw in the free market. It's because we don't have a free market! What we have instead are laws that reward corporate welfare benefits to special interests and insurance companies!
Congress must restore free-market health insurance. Once Americans have freedom of choice again, state legislatures will start competing to repeal their corporate welfare mandates. Insurance companies will compete to provide better coverage at lower prices. All Americans should have free market choices in health insurance -- not government-mandated coverage! No American should have to pay corporate welfare benefits through their insurance premiums, or have to go without insurance. Our politicians should just fix the problems politicians created!
I defy anyone to name one program that is run by the government that runs well and is cost-effective. The root of socialism (which is what many want for our health care system) is covetousness. Instead of working for a health care program similar to mine, the have-nots simply want me to pay for a comparable program for them. They want me to pay their bills! Some power-hungry politicians, such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama, simply want control of the biggest sector of the nation's economy and use that power to bribe voters.
We have the best health care system in the world. The world comes to US for health care when they can't get it at home -- including from industrialized nations such as Canada and the UK where health care has been nationalized. The world comes to US for innovations in medicine. Our doctors and nurses travel around the world at their own expense (or at the expense of charitable organizations) to share their expertise with developing nations. In spite of this, power-hungry politicians say our health care system is broken and in crisis and only they can rescue it. The solution is simple to fix whatever health care "crisis" we might have:
• Determine what is actually wrong and fix only that -- don't use problems or perceived problems as an excuse to nationalize the entire health care and health insurance industries! Whatever problems exist in the health care and health insurance industries are typically caused by excessive government interference in the free market.
• Get the lawyers out of the health care business. Litigation with outrageous lawsuit awards and settlements is one of two primary causes of high health care costs. We must have tort reform that will make ambulance chasers like John Edwards find honest work. Make it possible for medical practitioners to make decisions based on good medicine rather than on avoiding frivolous and excessive litigation.
• Eliminate laws that unnecessarily interfere with the free market -- particularly in the health insurance business. Allowing competition (not imposing competition from government as suggested by Nancy Pelosi) in the market will drive down insurance rates.
• Establish tax-free health savings accounts similar to IRAs.
• Make the cost of health insurance 100% tax-credit for individuals and employers.
• Make charitable giving a 100% tax-credit (perhaps then, even stingy people such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden will give a meaningful amount to charity). In the tax code, establish a special category of charity that would pay for medical treatment of those who cannot afford their own health care.
• Stop giving anchor-baby citizenships and enforce immigration laws to force illegals out of the country. Ban tax-exempt status for any entity that gives aid to illegals. Ban the tax-deductibility of all donations given to any entity that gives aid to illegals. Impose a 100% income tax on any entity that employs illegals. These simple steps will eliminate the burden of a substantial portion uninsured health care consumers.
• Stop paying unmarried woment to have babies.
• Eliminate all unconstitutional national programs and agencies (including Medicare, SCHIP, Medicaid, etc.) and eliminate all direct and indirect federal funding of non-profit organizations (including Planned Parenthood, AmeriCorps, ACORN, etc.) and cut taxes accordingly. That will allow consumers to keep their own hard-earned money to actually pay their own bills.
• Require all congressmen and retired congressmen live with the same health care benefits the rest of the nation enjoy.
These are simple steps that Congress can and must do immediately that will shrink government, restore liberty to the people, and provide an environment in which the health care and health insurance industries can improve themselves through the free market.
Eight-five percent of this nation has health insurance and full access to the world's best health care because they work for it and earn it. That success story is far better than government's performance in nearly any area one can imagine. To presume that government can fix anything, let alone health care is preposterous. There is absolutely nothing about our current health care that government can or will improve except to comply with the US Constitution and butt out and allow the free market to recover. The 15% without health insurance can largely be resolved by a government with the integrity to enforce immigration law. The remaining uninsured will be cared for by charity, as they have in the past, if government will allow the workers of this nation to keep the money they work hard to earn.
Like most Americans, I prefer getting my health coverage through private insurance rather than the federal government. That’s because, as other nations have shown, government healthcare always results in higher costs and rationing.
I have a right to make my own healthcare decisions that are consistent with my ethical and religious convictions. I do not want politicians and bureaucrats dictating the health care and insurance decisions of myself and my employer and imposing (at my expense) procedures (ie abortion) that are contrary to my ethical and religious convictions. Especially in these difficult economic times, I flatly reject any new government healthcare plan that imposes new taxes or burdens on individuals or businesses.
I am appalled that even congressmen from my own state are willing to "reform" (expand government's role in) health care. I view this betrayal the same as a football player who knowingly moves the ball toward the opposing team's goal. He may not move the ball as fast or as far as the opponents might, but he is helping the wrong team to win nevertheless. There is no healthcare legislation under consideration that can possibly be fixed by any amendment or compromise whatsoever.
All federal healthcare legislation must be killed immediately! No legislation is infinitely better than bad legislation with amendments that only make it less bad. There's nothing in it that's worth fine-tuning. There's nothing on the margins that could improve it.
There is no need for an alternative plan. Introducing an alternative plan implies that the health care and health insurance business is broken. It's not. What's broken is government! Besides, there is no constitutional authority for Congress to do what it proposes to do to health care and health insurance!
Every congressman must fight against the power grab that is underway over health care and health insurance. There can be no compromise because any compromise is a compromise with evil and an attack on individual liberty!
Recommended reading:
Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure
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