Forbes.com, Sept. 4, 2007

Commentary

Sally C. Pipes

The biggest problem in American health care is the fact that so many people get their insurance through their employers. More than 50 years ago, the government offered companies a tax break for offering health coverage to their employees. So today, when Americans lose their job, they can also lose their health care.

Get rid of employer-sponsored health care and let workers buy their insurance on their own. Think it's too expensive? It wouldn't be, if we got rid of the miles of red tape that regulate insurance.

The first regulations we need to go after are the 1,901 state-level mandates dictating what health insurance policies must cover. In Massachusetts, for example, every insurance policy must cover in vitro fertilization, even if you're a 25-year-old male, or a nun. In California, there are 46 such mandates, which drive up the cost of insurance for everyone.

Get rid of the mandates and let Americans buy the kind of insurance they need and want. Many need only catastrophic insurance with a high deductible and a low monthly premium. It won't cover every cough and sniffle, but it will be there in case the worst happens. Americans buy auto and homeowners insurance in case of disaster but don't mind paying for routine car and home repairs. Why should health care be any different?

There are more regulations we should get rid of. For example, Americans are currently not allowed to shop for health insurance across state lines. Getting rid of this rule would create a national market for health insurance, which would lower prices.

Every American could be insured tomorrow if the money devoted to regulating health insurance was spent instead on health insurance.

Sally Pipes is president of the Pacific Research Institute and the author of Miracle Cure: How to Solve America's Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn't the Answer.

Interviewed by Elisabeth Eaves

Contributors

Senator Bob Bennett Republican, Utah		Elizabeth H. Bradley Professor of Epidemilogy and Public Health, Yale University
David R. Carlucci Chairman and CEO of IMS Health		Steve Case Founder, Revolution HealthCare
Carolyn Clancy, M.D. Director, Agency for Health Care Research and Quality		Tara A. Cortes Chief Executive, Lighthouse International
Michael J. Critelli Executive Chairman, Pitney Bowes		Tom Daschle Center for American Progress and former State Majority Leader
Senator Michael B. Enzi Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions		Dr. Paul Farmer Founder, Partners In Health
Peter Ferrara Director, Entitlement and Budget Policy, Institute for Policy Innovation		Laurie Garrett Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention		Newt Gingrich Founder, Center For Health Transformation and former Republican Speaker of the House
Jeff Goldsmith, Ph.D. President, Health Futures, Inc.		Senator Charles Grassley Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee
George C. Halvorson CEO, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan		Fred Hassan CEO, Schering Plough
Clark C. Havighurst Professor, Duke Law School		Regina Herzlinger Harvard Business School
Karen Ignagni CEO, America's Health Insurance Plans		Marguerite W. Kondracke CEO, America's Promise Alliance
Jeanne Lambrew and John Podesta Center for American Progress		Robert E. Litan The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Ana Manilow, M.D. President, Physicians for a National Health Care Program		Leslie Norwalk Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Paul H. O'Neill Special Advisor, the Blackstone Group/Former U.S. Treasury Secretary		Dean Ornish Founder, Preventative Medicine Research Institute
Sally C. Pipes President, Pacific Research Institute		Uwe Reinhardt Professor, Princeton University
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Member, Senate Special Committee on Aging		Senator Ron Wyden Co-Sponsor, Healthy Americans Act