The Party of No?

Democrats have been hitting the TV and radio waves to strike back at their Republican counterparts. We have been told by liberal after liberal that the Republican party is the party of no. We have been told that the real tragedy here would be to do nothing. But who is saying to do nothing?

John Mackey's The Whole Food Alternative to Obamacare offers free market solutions that could lower the cost of healthcare immediately while making wiser consumers out of us all.

Some of the ideas he suggests:

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

As with anything else, the answers are there in the free market. Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries we have. Some of the regulations, such as not allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines, serve no one but the insurance companies who are free to act without competition. Others such as the complete lack of tort reform in any of the current bills is a sop to the trial lawyers that donate so much money to the Democrat party.

When housing was determined to be "too important to be left to the free market" we created Fannie and Freddie, and with them the seeds of our current economic crisis.

With healthcare now comprising 16% of our economy, is it any wonder people are skeptical that the government has now determined that it is also "too important to be left to the free market"?