"Fighting to Preserve ObamaCare": Failing to Preserve Health Care

Ms. Freudenheim's frustrating wiht rising medical insurance is understandable. Health insurance costs are driving many companies out of business or restricting their investments to hire and expand their firms. Those who cannot afford coverage endanger our hospitals with needs far outstripping the resources and revenues of our medical facilities.

Yet ObamaCare is not the solution to these growing problems. By mandating that individuals purchase health insurance or face stiff fines from the federal goverment, the Obama Administration and Democratic Congress have unconstitutionally encroached on the private economic choices of the American People. Furthermore, this statist model will not drive down health care costs. By requiring medical insurance companies to take on patiens with severe or latent pre-existing conditions, the President's overbearing legislation has ensured that premiums will skyrocket (as they already are, contary to Obama's hollow promises), that insurance companies will close their doors entirely, and that medical facilities will hemorage talent and resources with growing number of patients arbitarily depending on a third party to defray their medical expenses.

Affordable health care can emerge from a free market mechanism, in which insurers compete with potential buyers if they choose to purchase medical insurance in the first place. As long as employers are required to foot the bill for their employee's medical expenses, insurers will be handling disbursements far beyond the initial and indisputable needs of the patient. Let us not forget that for years, individuals would seek medical care, then pay off the bills in installments following their treatment. Rather was there a complaint against this direct "pay-as-you-go" network.

If a client pays for medical care out of his own pocket, he will be more diligent to care for himself as much as possible before seeking professional medical help. Car insurance, for example, works along this model. Those clients pay premiums in the event of an accident and to comply with state law. For all other routine and ancillary needs, they pay for them out of pocket.

Also regarding competition, if insurance clients were permitted to purchase medical insurance across state lines, the market for insurance would expand, competition would ensue, and costs would go down. Currently, medical insurers operate within mini state monopolies, thus enabling them to raise premiums or keep them high.

On the matter of regulating to what extent insurers may or may not raise premiums, if the State of California insists on determining how much money an insurance company may take in yearly, these companies will either fold, limit their coverage, or rationing will ensue in clinics and hospitals throughout the state.

Indeed, health insurance can be confusing. But the red tape, regulations, and growing intervention of the government into the industry is instigating the rise in costs, the diminishing quality of care, and the rationing of personnel, facilities, and supplies in the health care industry.

It is admirable that Jewish communities are coming together to discuss options for dealing with rising health care and medical insurance costs. Yet topics such as tort reform, permitting the purchase of insurance across state lines, tax credits for health savings accounts, and even the near-certain repeal of ObamaCare and deregulation of the medical insurance industry, will all permit individual buyers to seek out coverage to suit their needs without breaking their bank accounts or bankrupting the federal and state governments.