A friend sent me a link to a Washington Times article, “Insurer ends health program rather than pay out big.” The subject line of my friend’s e-mail was “Evil insurance company.” I disagree.

It’s a sad story. Ian Pearl, 37-year-old brother of novelist Matthew Pearl, “has Type II spinal muscular atrophy – which often kills victims in infancy. He grew to adulthood only to suffer respiratory arrest at 19. He has required a tracheal tube ever since.” His insurance company, Guardian Life, is “legally barred from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims. So “the New York-based insurer simply canceled lines of coverage altogether in entire states to avoid paying high-cost claims like Mr. Pearl’s.”

Mr. Pearl’s care costs $1 million a year. Without it, he will probably die.

Why don’t I think the insurance company is evil? Because a for-profit company has to watch its bottom line. It is responsible to its shareholders. It exists in order to make money. If it doesn’t, it will fail; and if it fails, even more people will be uninsured.

What is evil is this: that we Americans allow our health-care system to be financed by industries that exist to make a profit. No other rich capitalist nation does this.

Many developed nations finance their health-care systems through private insurance companies. The difference is this: everywhere else, basic health insurance is required by law to be not-for-profit.

Our legislators are trying to reform health care without reforming the evil that is at the heart of our system. Until the profit motive is removed from basic health-care insurance, we will continue to read stories like Mr. Pearl’s.

We have yet to face up to the fact that our current crisis was caused in large part because we threw away the progressive taxes instituted by our forefathers to prevent speculative excess. The more extreme the distribution of income, the greater the chance of a fantasy finance casino. The last time we had a distribution as skewed as today was 1929. Is that coincidental? No. When capital builds up in the hands of the few, the economy becomes imbalanced. There are not enough tangible investments in goods and services to satisfy the investment desires of concentrated wealth holders. So the money runs to Wall Street-created securities and Wall Street-enabled bubbles. You can bank on it.

During the New Deal and afterward we tamed such excesses through steep progressive income taxes. The rate hit 91 percent during the Eisenhower years on incomes that today would be about $3 million. That means the next dollar of income would send 91 cents to the Treasury (while the tax rate applied to the first $3 million was lower). Our economy did not suffer. Quite the contrary, this coincided with America’s economic “Golden Age.” And we had no financial crashes. Yes, there were all kinds of loopholes but we had the narrowest distribution of income on record during those years. Rich people were still rich, but the blind race to accumulate billions was held in check.

In order to accomplish these tasks the government must raise money, which comes from the private sector through various means. Whatever the government consumes, leaves that much less for the private sector, which is why small government encourages business expansion by allowing the excess capital to go to private business, except in times of war or other national emergency.

The Federal Government has no business in Education. Since the creation of the Department of Education in 1980, US performance in schools has declined, inspite of massive government spending.

Healthcare is another example. The government got involved in the healthcare system back during WWII. FDR decided to raise the top marginal rate to 94% in 1942, so companies began to offer employee health insurance instead of raising pay which would trigger a larger tax bill for employees. With a second party paying costs for every doctor visit, consumers were not concerned with the Doctor bills. Instead of pay as you go by consumers for routine checkups, doctors had to hire more office help to keep up with all the insurance forms that had to be filed. Then in the 1960s we got Medicare followed later by medicade. The government set the rates doctors would be billed for services regardless of the cost of those services to the physicians. To make up for lost fees doctors had to raise other fees to make up the difference. Medicare payments are notoriously late as everyone knows and today do not cover the doctor’s expenses of providing services. Doctors of lose money on medicare patients. Then comes the mindset of so many Americans that if something goes wrong or if there is an undesireable outcome in a medical procedure surely it is the doctor’s fault. Lawsuits, which in the not too distant past were nearly non-existant, became the best thing in the get rich quick fad, beating the lottery by a mile. Defensive medicine became a necessity and the additional cost of Mal-practice insurance sent costs skyward. Government added pressure on hospital emergency rooms by requiring all patients be treated regardless of ability to pay. Those that do not pay are merely passing on their costs to those that do.

There are two areas of medicine where costs have dropped dramatically while quality of care has improved. These two areas are eye surgury to correct vision and cosmetic surgury (breast implants, plastic surgury, etc.) These are two areas where the individual must pay all costs out of pocket, so they shop for the best and lowest cost. Price competition leads to lower costs while technilogical advances leads to improve quality. It is what we see in other consumer items such as computers, TVs, cell phones, etc. Prices decline while quality improves. This is called free market capitalism and makes life better for everyone.

So what is the solution to rising health care costs? Open the market up to competition. Americans should be allowed to shop for their own insurance anywhere in the world, just as we shop for our own cars, TVs, and cell phones. The government should provide for health saving accounts, where people can save out of tax dollars the money they will need to pay for routine medical care. This would reduce costs to doctors while making services competitive in both price and quality. THE GOVERNMENT should pass legislation to end the abuses caused by frivilous in lawsuits. But then government would be going against the trial lawyers which are big contributors, especially to the Democratic party.

Those of you that think government is the answer to our healthcare problems or anyother problems just take a look at what has happened with a $3 billion cash for clunkers program….what a mess. Do you really think government, with a 1100 page complex bill, will reduce costs of health care while improving quality? If you do believe this, you need to have your head examined……something is missing. Just because our politician make a piece of legislation sound good does not mean it will workout as planned. Social Security will be bankrupt within a year or two and Medicare already is. We created the Federal Reserve to establish a sound monetary system and prevent economic catastrophes and since then we have had 1 great depression that lasted 12 years, stagflation in the late 70s and early 80s, and now the biggest catastrophe of all as we head into another depression that will last years along with inflation and maybe even hyperinflation. Since the creation of the Fed the USD has lost 97% of its purchasing power and 80% of that was lost since 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window. As government gets more power and grows in size we become slaves to that government. Our founders knew it and warned us, but like spoiled children we decided we knew best.

Most of all we have abandoned the wisdom of our Heavenly Father, whose words are crystal clear regarding how our lives should be run. Our faith cannot be in government for governments are made up of men and human beings are notoriously wicked and selfish. We are now reaping what we sowed, and government under Bush and now Obama is sowing even worse seed, which is why the worst of this economic downturn lies ahead of us.