We will never truly know how much excellent health insurance costs across the United States until the artificial state barriers are struck down.  In 1944 the Supreme Court ruled that insurance was like any other interstate commerce and fell under the Federal government’s jurisdiction.

Congress then, in 1945, made up the McCarran-Ferguson Act so that each state could resume taking the bribes and payoffs which came from choosing a few insurers who could come in as monopolies and price gouge to their hearts content.

It is like stopping the 1,595 trucks which carry health insurance in America at each state border.  Instead of allowing them in so people can compare all the cargos and choose the best, the state picks 2-10 to allow in and forbids the other 1,590 from communicating with their residents.

In many states the few trucks who are allowed in are protected by elected officials so they can charge whatever they want and disallow people with preconditions.  Yes, exactly, under our current system the state chooses and protects predatory insurers. 

Major medical insurance from Anthem Blue Cross in CT, for example, is TWICE as much as major medical insurance from Empire Blue Cross in New York for no reason except some CT elected officials have a mysterious personal stake in preventing their constituents from having access to the better plan.

The same applies to the artificial state barriers on medical malpractice insurance, so that doctors in CT pay higher premiums than anywhere else.

Striking state barriers down would over night drop health insurance prices by allowing the best companies access to new clients and allowing consumers to drive the predatory insurers out of business.

Malpractice insurance for doctors, nurses, techs, hospitals, clinics would go down, "defensive medicine" (i.e. 5 tests instead of 1 for fear of lawsuits) would also go down.

And, too, the ability for local and regional health-cooperatives to be developed would be assured.

Tort reform on non-economic damages is also desperately needed. This would mean all the money in the world that is needed to care for a victim of malpractice is still in place—it’s just those lottery verdicts of a million for loss of consortion with drug-addict ex-spouses disappear.  Simply the mention of any kind of "cap" on those non-medical, non-economic related damages would do a great deal toward blocking predatory lawyers.

 So, yes, I’m for a public option, too, but ONLY if:

1)  Americans can choose from all of the best private insurance plans in the country, too.  This means striking down McCarran-Ferguson and returning to the Supreme Court’s decision that no state has the right to block the best insurance companies from doing business in each state. 

(If our elected officials in Washington are so personally hog-tied with insurers they are scared to do this, the President could propose that unless states drop their artifical barriers which protect monopolies and predatory insurers the Feds will not, for example, give them any Medicaid funds)

2) Mandate that unless members of the American Bar Association agree to tort reform on non-economic damages, then they will not be allowed to sue any employee or institution in the government option system.  (Watch how fast they want tort reform.)

And, too, it would be nice if the public option was created by our best business and health minds who would be willing to sit on the board of a non-profit.  Imagine what Buffet, Gates, et al, could come up with, using a loan from the Federal government to launch this public insurance non-profit, and how much better people would sleep at night knowing that the government officials who currently accomodate organized crime in no-bid contracts, Medicaid and low-income housing would be frozen out.

Sorry to go on and on but it is awfully important to realize that elected officials and lawyers have nurtured and protected predatory insurers for decades and the three will not be our saviors now.  But we can be.  And the first step is making sure Americans understand that there are all kinds of healthcare options for them—only the goverment has barred their access to them, and even to the information that they exist.

Yes, the public option. Weather or not to give the American People a choice between public option or not. Think about it. They are woundering weather or not to give the American People an option.

Myself, I see this as robbing another freedom away from the American People. Who lobbies for the American People any more?

I cannot help but feel that when anything get’s bigger then our own laws and government, then it should be considered a threat to the American People and either restricted, or arrested and broke up. Or how about kicked out of the country for treason.

America soon will need to stop saying the land of the free………………