If it doesn't go without saying, the public option would be a joke if it weren't such a serious threat. I will, for now, assume you already know why this legislation is terrible, and perhaps write a more in depth article on why at another time.

The idea of requiring insurance companies to take on clients with a pre-existing condition is equally foolish if you expect these companies to give them a comparable rate to those who do not. This is just one more symptom of people not taking responsibility for themselves, not understanding the fundamentals of what insurance is, and looking to government for answers, which invariably creates more trouble than it solves.

The whole idea of insurance (originally) was to guard against that which might not ever occur. To insure the inevitable would defeat the purpose. If I have a terminal illness which will surely cost millions just to keep me alive for two years and I don't have insurance, for me to call an insurance company and them be required to take me on at that point at a normal rate would be absolutely absurd. Equally, if I go for regular checkups, or dental cleanings, it is absolutely absurd for me to expect my health insurance to cover these things because they are things that I know will occur on a regular basis. If I need a medication that costs $1,000/month, and I need it every month, I cannot expect my monthly insurance costs to be $300/month.

As far as insurance companies dropping people because they get sick, well that is simply a matter of contract law. If your contract says they have to pay your bills, then they have to pay your bills! Simply enforcing contract law, which should be one of the primary purposes of all government and the courts especially, solves this problem instantly. And if an insurance company markets its plan, in a manner different from its contracts, then this is a matter of fraud, which is, and should be, illegal. By simply not writing legislation in favor of insurance companies, and prosecuting dishonest salespersons for fraud, this problem is also solved instantly.

The only way to lower the costs of health care insurance, is to lower the costs of health care. There are several ways to do this.

Many Republicans talk about tort reform, in other words, malpractice reform. And if it wasn't those in the federal government talking about it, I would be all in favor of this. The United States Federal Government has no constitutional authority under which to regulate state courts. The states need to reform their own courts, and several have done this and shown success. Because one of the larger problems you have when you go to visit a doctor is he is paying as much as 7 times the average American salary in malpractice insurance alone. That is before he buys any equipment, pays the lease on his office, pays any employees, pays back his school loans, performs any services, or makes any profits. If a doctor has to pay 5 times as much as you make just to insure his practice, no wonder it costs more than you can afford to see a doctor.

Tort reform is more than just limiting punitive damages, or non-economic damages, though that is an important part. Requiring persons who file frivolous lawsuits, to pay the legal expenses of the defendant for example cuts the number of lawsuits drastically, and doesn't prevent anyone from getting paid if a doctor removes a lung instead of fixing your leg.

But the federal government has no authority under which to create these changes. Anyone in congress talking about doing it is talking about violating the constitution and expanding the role of the Federal Government. We all know what happens when the federal government expands, it expands even further. Don't let them fool you.

So what can the Federal Government do? How about not giving the FDA $3.2 Billion a year, to be the fully owned subsidiary of Monsanto and Big Pharma, how about not giving the CDC $10+ Billion to be their propoganda arm? People crack down on Republicans for siding with the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies and they are not completely wrong. But deregulation doesn't necessarily mean siding with them. If we stop letting them pass laws to protect themselves and prevent competition, we can lower the cost of medicine. Current federal law prevents competition, and this is the result of letting the FDA become so infested with conflicts of interest that there isn't even the image of fairness. Bad medicine gets through because it financially benefits FDA personnel, good medicine doesn't because it financially hurts FDA personnel. State laws prevent competition amongst insurance companies by preventing certain companies from operating within their states, and preventing you from buying insurance from outside your state.

Free markets solve problems all by themselves. Without state laws protecting the insurance company monopolies, and the FDA and the CDC preventing free markets in medicine, costs will go down. And for those who say the FDA prevents dangerous medicine from making it to market, or the CDC prevents people from getting sick, pick up a newspaper from time to time, not a year goes by that we don't find out some drug we thought was fine turns out to be deadly. Allowing pharmaceutical companies to pass their own laws and do their own "government research", causes bad drugs to make it to your medicine cabinet. Without the FDA, private agencies, subject to government scrutiny and lawsuits would do that research and issue those reports. It always has been and always will be illegal to commit murder or assault, and if the government would just keep their noses out of free markets, you could always sue a manufacturer for marketing a dangerous product under the guise of it being proven safe. When the lawsuits began against the tobacco companies, did the tobacco companies go out of business and learn their lesson? No, the government stepped in and protected them, in order to continue taxing and regulating it. We should have let those liars go bankrupt, and let new tobacco companies rise to replace them and honestly market their product. We should do the same for Big Pharma, and the insurance companies.

We don't need to pass legislation to hurt these industries, if we can just repeal and stop passing legislation to help them. Reaffirm the line between the public sector and the private sector and we will have Real Health Care Reform!