Half the Health Care at Double the Cost

Ann Coulter says all that needs to be said on health care today in a column at Townhall.com entitled Take 2 Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4. The money quote:

Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market.

Along the way, she makes the point that our current health care "crisis" was caused by government intervention into a system that was working just fine before. So the politicians solution is more government intervention. If it didn't "work" the first time, do it again only harder.

Except, you see, it did really work, but not like you would think. No, what it did do was put money in politicians campaign funds, and gave them more power. You see, individual practitioners have no real incentive to lobby the Congress, but as soon as you put a bunch of regulations in place, people have a reason to go and try to get advantages for themselves. Only too late, they realized they had sold their liberty and professional integrity for temporary monetary gain, as this guy did. Listen to the undercurrent of bitterness in his voice as he tells his story. Then tell me you think we need a "government option." Frankly, I think we need to free the insurance companies to offer a wider range of insurance options, and let people select what they need, like in a grocery store.