A fiasco is the only way to characterize it. Contrary to the promises, insurance costs are going up, not down. It is an empty claim to fame for Obama to espouse that consumers with a preexisting medical condition can not be turned down by an insurance carrier without pointing out that the carrier's rates are not controlled. e.g. I will insure you, but sign over your first born child and your house. I ask everyone I meet. Are your insurance rates decreasing? The answer is invariably no.
Steve Forbes, a man too smart to be elected to most anything, says that simply allowing insurance companies to operate under interstate commerce laws would create significant competition. He writes that he could get a policy in his neighboring state of Pennsylvania at 1/2 the price he pays on New Jersey. IBM, Apple, Amazon, Coca-cola and others can sell their goods in any state, but this is not the case for the insurance companies. Obama never even mentions this old solution, called competition, to drive insurance costs down. Further, Obama preaches the benefits of the state insurance pools as if these pools are a novel concept of Obamacare. States have operated these pools for decades. My wife was in one for 5 years.
As the problems of managing a country of 350 million people with a budget totally trillions of dollars increase in magnitude and complexity, it is possible that democracy will not work. The solutions may just be too complex for everyone to understand and vote intelligently. The TV commentators with their surface knowledge and one-liners exacerbate the problem.
Perhaps, we should let Amazon sell heath insurance on-line across all state lines. Hmm?
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