Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 4, 2007

More Letters to the Editor

Your article on the growing number of adults without health insurance describes a consequence of government intrusion into our health care decisions, not a call for even more meddling ("CDC: About 2 million more Americans uninsured," June 26).

The rising cost of healthcare premiums is the main culprit for the expanding ranks of the uninsured. Americans are simply being priced out of the market. But government interference in the health care market through such things as mandates on individual policies and health providers has contributed significantly to these rising costs.

Ironically, America's overregulation of health care has actually been responsible for 4,000 more deaths nationwide than the lack of health insurance, according to a recent study by Professor Christopher Conover of Duke University.

If our leaders truly wish to stem the growing tide of the uninsured, they should look to making insurance more affordable by freeing up the market for individual policies, reforming their tort systems, and streamlining government health care programs as encouragement for more people to buy into health plans. Americans deserve more ownership of their health care, not more government take-over.

THE VIADUCT