Posted by Janet Trautwein, Arlington, Va. May 31, 2009 04:29AM
Trautwein is executive vice president and CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters.
Demonizing private health insurers with such tactics as antitrust investigations may make for good political theater, but it will do nothing about America's skyrocketing health care costs ("Activists seek Justice Dept. probe of insurers," May 20).
Health care isn't expensive because of insurance -- it's the other way around. Insurance has become so costly because the medical goods and services it pays for have become so costly.
Injecting more government into the health care system by creating a public insurance plan would only make things worse. Because of the systematic underpayment of hospitals and doctors by existing government health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the average family of four is saddled with an extra $1,500 a year in premiums.
Policymakers can bring down health costs by expanding access to consumer-driven offerings like high-deductible individual policies.
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