Verizon Wireless Cure for Health Care Reform

"Sadly, neither version of the healthcare plans in front of Congress allow space for healthy competition. The various health insurance “exchanges” and byzantine combinations of subsidies and penalties that the proposed legislation contains will only further restrict competition. Restrictions force insurance companies to offer only those plans that meet government approval.

If a bill passes, the result would be the equivalent of forcing every American to buy a cellphone, even if they didn’t want one. Those who have phones would see their plan costs soar, spending more for features they don’t want and inferior customer service. Washington should seriously consider the success of the cellphone industry’s model. Making health insurers more consumer-friendly requires competition.

By changing tax law to break the link between employment and health insurance and by abolishing laws that prevent purchasing health insurance across state lines, Washington could turn a doomed system around. More competition would give consumers more options and enable them to switch providers more easily, which would create much stronger incentives for good customer service than just complaining to a monopoly.

The sooner Congress realizes that the prescription is not more government regulations but a dose of real competition, the sooner we can restore some health to the health insurance industry."

~Steve Horwitz in the Christian Science Monitor

MP: The chart above shows the percent change in the CPI since 1998 for all items (+34%) compared to the CPI for medical services (+60%, almost twice the overall rate of average price increase) vs. a -36.4% decrease in the CPI for cell phone services since 1998.