Health Care BS

As anyone with a modicum of literacy in economics understands, a major driver of high health costs has been the absence of a national health insurance market.  Grace-Marie Turner, for example, explains it thus:

Freeing Americans to buy health insurance across state lines would give people more choices in health care.

Why can’t they do so? Because it is against the law.  And what is the consequence of preventing patients from buying insurance in a national market? The citizens of many states get ripped off:

For example, a typical health-insurance policy in heavily regulated New York costs more than three times as much as in less regulated Iowa ($388 a month versus $98 a month for the same coverage).

Does anyone think the New Yorker would buy the more expensive policy if there were no law compelling him to do so? If it were not illegal to for the New Yorker to buy the Iowa policy, he would.

Then, in order to keep the New Yorker’s business, the New York insurance company would be forced to cut its premiums. Voila! The cost of coverage goes down and the patient wins.

So, what is the policy of the Obama administration? The president and his minions are against allowing competition across state lines. Michelle Malkin sums it up nicely:

President Obama favors more consumer “choice” by opposing greater choice through increased health insurance competition across state lines.

She also has a video of David Axelrod defending this idiotic policy, if you can stand to watch it. He makes it obvious that controlling costs is at the bottom of their priority list.