[The Pack Knight]

The next sentence in the article is important and needs to be repeated as much as possible.

I've put "health insurance" in quotes because this program has nothing to do with actuarial risks or long-term investing. "Health insurance" as it works today is nothing more than a payment plan for health care.

That's the real reason behind out of control health care costs. We use the least efficient payment method for health care possible (other than the government), which does more to isolate consumers from the economic consequences of their health care choices than any other method (other than the government).

There are a lot of reasons for this, but one is the excessive number of "mandates" states put on insurance companies to require them to cover various procedures in every policy, whether the insuree wants it or not.

I have one modest proposal. Remember how Congress was all in a huff to require cable companies to offer "a la carte" programming packages? Why not the same thing for health insurance? Shouldn't I have a choice whether I want coverage for, say, hair transplants or not?

Of course, our politicians' M.O. for the last several decades has been to relentlessly interfere in the market, and then complain when the market "doesn't work", as if it has ever been given a chance to. Such is the case with our "health care crisis."

[Ev Reeman]

The arguments against universal health care:

1. It will cost too damn much, a lot more than the projected costs offered by government bureaucratic flunkies.

2. Health care will be rationed.

3. No incentives for doctors of all kinds to become doctors or to stay in the medical profession because salaries will be capped.

4. Enormous taxes for everybody in order to pay for universal health care.

5. Patients will wait months and years for care. This will especially hurt the elderly the most. The elderly will die waiting for care.

6. No guarantee illegal aliens will not be recipients of health care that American taxpayers (you and me) will pay through the nose for.

7. Government bureaucrats will determine who will receive care and who wont.

8. Health care will no longer be determined by doctors and their patients but be run by a nameless faceless government bureaucracy.

[Ev Reeman]

The arguments against universal health care:

1. It will cost too damn much, a lot more than the projected costs offered by government bureaucratic flunkies.

2. Health care will be rationed.

3. No incentives for doctors of all kinds to become doctors or to stay in the medical profession because salaries will be capped.

4. Enormous taxes for everybody in order to pay for universal health care.

5. Patients will wait months and years for care. This will especially hurt the elderly the most. The elderly will die waiting for care.

6. No guarantee illegal aliens will not be recipients of health care that American taxpayers (you and me) will pay through the nose for.

7. Government bureaucrats will determine who will receive care and who wont.

8. Health care will no longer be determined by doctors and their patients but be run by a nameless faceless government bureaucracy.