Paul W. Thiesen on health care reform

With the increasing cost of health care, the government's answer is to socialize it without looking at the root causes of the increasing costs. If the government had applied root-cause analysis, it would discover that it was the source of rising costs as it has tried to regulate health care since the 1960s. Socializing health care will only increase costs and reduce services.

What should happen is a review of government regulations to discard those that are restrictive. One example of this is to allow all insurers to compete in all states; this is the only way to achieve the goal of choice and competition. But unless the citizens speak up, government will go on to serve special interests that only serve a few at the cost of the people.

Government-run health care has never reached the goal of targeted costs and services whether at a national level (Medicare) or state level (Massachusetts/Tennessee). If the tests have all failed on smaller scales, then why would we attempt to expand it to a national level?

Paul W. Theisen
Aiea