Mar 252009
 

While looking for something else on the White House web site, I found the following:

On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes — government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules.

Part of that is true. I’ve heard many people propose higher taxes for government-run health care. But I’ve never, ever heard anyone, not even the laissez-faire libertarians, suggest that we allow insurance companies to operate without rules. Maybe someone, somewhere, in a dorm room littered with pizza and beer bottles, has come up with that idea. But it’s simply not true that this is one of the extremes that are offered to the American people.

Health insurance is already highly regulated. That doesn’t mean improvements couldn’t be made in the regulatory system. But it’s hard to have a good national discussion about this when the discussion leader starts off with nonsense.