Democrats need to debunk GOP's insurance idea

Meaningful health care reform has been put on the back burner once again. The insurance companies are victorious once again. The remaining ideas for “reform” only help them consolidate their power.

Take the idea to allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. I'm a Democrat and I like the sound of “compete” - except when you realize that the true goal is to have no federal regulations. Think about what that would mean. All the insurance companies would move their headquarters to a state that allows them to do whatever they want, as credit card companies once did. Do you think Delaware and South Dakota are centers of the banking world? No, they let companies do pretty much whatever they wanted to do, leading to massive consumer abuse (until the Credit Card Protection Act was recently signed into law by Obama, which reintroduced federal regulation).

Democrats have not explained this fully, which leaves the Republicans looking like they have a good idea, when the idea is actually terrible. We must have federal regulations, but Republicans would yell and scream that was a “government takeover of health care.”

Rick Strandrel

Cedar Rapids