a) what does it have to do with the specific content of the post?
b) who is the “little capitalist idealist” it’s addressed to, anyway?
c) your argument that they have a monopoly because they write the policy you buy whose price is then set by the same insurance company makes no sense (every company sets prices for its goods or services; all price-setting is not illegal; only collusive price-fixing is)
d Maybe you haven’t heard but the competition myth was loudly exploded back in June, when Health Care for America Now (HCAN) released this report:

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country’s insurance markets are defined as “highly concentrated,” according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that’s led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Far from healthy market competition, HCAN describes the situation as “a market failure where a small number of large companies use their concentrated power to control premium levels, benefit packages, and provider payments in the markets they dominate.”

I do not understand why the competition myth has not been exploded, it is, as if, everyone still believes in Santa and telling someone the truth is anomalous with disappointing a three year old with the news, “Santa does not exist”.

Then let me say it this way, Santa does not exist, nor does health insurance competition exist, nor can it. It is impossible to for them to compete, they have a monopoly, they write the policy you buy whose price is then set by the same insurance company.

It’s okay, don’t cry, my little capitalist idealist.

I do not understand why the competition myth has not been exploded, it is, as if, everyone still believes in Santa and telling someone the truth is anomalous with disappointing a three year old with the news, “Santa does not exist”.

Then let me say it this way, Santa does not exist, nor does health insurance competition exist, nor can it. It is impossible to for them to compete, they have a monopoly, they write the policy you buy whose price is then set by the same insurance company.

It’s okay, don’t cry, my little capitalist idealist.

Paul Hanseen

Just click on the second link in the post, and follow the links from there.

Your “easy proofs” are facile and/or misinformed. There’s also “deliberately dishonest” as a possibility. You’re making tired Republican “arguments” that have been repeatedly debunked.

Just for example:
1) There may be hundreds of insurance companies, but in most markets 90% of the market is controlled by 1 or 2 companies. Nor even the Republicans — who have proved willing to lend their name to a hell of a lot of lies in opposing healthcare reform — are willing to call that competition.
3) The CBO scored both the first decade and the second decade. How convenient to pretend their analysis doesn’t go beyond the first 10 years.
4) Depends on the definition of “learn”, doesn’t it? As even some in the “fair and balanced” mainstream media have felt compelled to point out, one side has only been peddling lies and spreading misinformation. And the public still strongly supports a public option. This is a Washington Post-ABC News poll from mid-October:

On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)

5) You don’t seem to understand the difference between the public option and subsidies to low-income Americans. (No doubt you are also vehemently opposed to other grand entitlement programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc.)
6) And we should never ever do anything for the first time, right? (That’s ignoring the fact that the government is already in the heath insurance business, via Medicaid, Medicare, and the VA system, not to mention the Cadillac plans provided to members of Congress.)

None of the bills will reduce health care costs.

No doubt you have conducted your own authoritative analysis of the issue, which is more reliable than that of the CBO?

The health care bills are nothing more than a means of redistributing wealth. Part of the progressive’s agenda to achieve “social equality”. None of the bills will reduce health care costs. None address portability, tort reform (with resultant defensive medicine), or competition across state lines.