Health Care cost reform is essential to true advancements in health care for the American people. We have been taught to believe that we have a fair market system and that the one being proposed is a socialist alternative.

Perhaps the issue most overlooked, and quite possibly the most consequential, is the insurance industry's exemption from Federal Anti-Trust laws and how that plays into the rise in health care costs. We have been led to believe that our current system is free market. In reality, it isn't entirely. We are living the third alternative that none of us like. It isn't free market. It isn't socialist. It is essentially monopolistic. The insurance industry is one of only two industries that are exempted from Federal Anti-Trust laws. This exemption provides them with a non-free market control over health care (FYI, the other industry is Major League Baseball) (see footnote 2).

This exemption gives insurance agencies the opportunity to do things that, for every other company in America (besides the NY Yankees), is illegal. For example, they can set policies together, set prices together and gather information together. How is that helpful for us? It isn't (see footnote 4).

Health Care cost reform must tackle this huge issue. If it doesn't, then it has failed. Health Care cost reform should focus on the following areas:

1. As mentioned, bring fair market principles to the insurance industry by repealing the anti-trust exemption and responsibly regulating that industry to ensure that price fixing is ended & monopolies are broken up. Imagine what that alone would do.

2. Introduce true incentives to reduce costs in the industry. Those incentives could take the form of tax breaks, grants, fines, etc.

3. Eliminate the huge divide between what someone without insurance pays versus what the insurance company pays for the exact same services. For example, your insurance company may have paid $3,000 for certain services; but you, however, would have to pay perhaps $5,000 for the same treatment if you didn't have insurance. That divide needs to end, or be brought more closely in line, to give consumers a true choice between self insurance and no insurance. People are FORCED onto insurance because of the monopoly on the payer system. It works to their advantage by reducing the amount that they pay to doctors, clinics, etc. to such a degree that the doctors & clinics, to make up that money, have to charge more to the uninsured in order to recoup some of that lost money. This incentivizes people to buy insurance. Who wins? Not the health care industry - the insurance industry.

4. More closely regulate malpractice lawsuits. Malpractice insurance is a large part of the increased costs.

Notice how #1 & #4 are both related to insurance. There is real work to be done with that industry. I believe it would have a sudden & immediate impact on health care costs nationwide. Insurance & health care cost reform should be the cry. Is this list of mine all inclusive? Not by any stretch of the imagination. This is a huge topic. But I do believe that insurance reform would supply a huge benefit to the public whereas pushing forward with universal care would actually increase costs, increase taxes, decrease individual incomes, lead to a rationing of care, reduce personal liberties and contribute toward the ruin of the country.

Creating a one-payer system only further entrenches the monopoly held by the insurance companies on health care and ensures that there will never, ever be a free market system to help the consumer & tax payer. Sadly, as the AFL-CIO reports, the insurance industry is a huge partner in the current "Health Care Reform" process (see footnote 5).

Health Care Cost reform will only happen with Insurance Industry Reform. Although it is 65 years in the making, it is never too late to start and it is long overdue.

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