And on to health care reform....

Where does one begin.  Does everyone deserve health care?  Yes if they contribute to society in some way, no if they sit around with their hand out and give nothing back.  We keep hearing about socialism.  The least editorial definition I could find, believe it or not, came from the all knowing Wikipedia:  

Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization advocating common or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended.

By this very definition, the implication is that EVERYONE produces and is compensated accordingly. Based on that principal, we would still have millions of folks without health care. So, a socialist approach won't work, because quite frankly, too many Americans simply don't work. 

Why is health care and medical insurance so unaffordable?

Doctors and hospitals must charge enough to pay ridiculous malpractice insurance premiums.  Pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive in the US. Health insurance companies need to meet the expectations of their investors as they gamble with premiums.

Why is malpractice insurance so costly?  Law suits of course.  Who benefits from the law suits, lawyers who earn fat contingencies.

Why are prescription drugs so expensive?  Because they can be.  And, they have to be in order to pay for all the TV ads telling us how badly we all need them.

And health insurance premiums?  Insurance companies rate their success on the claims they don't pay. In simple numbers, if premiums total $1,000,000, and claims total $500,000, the insurance company has plenty of money to pay its investors.  In order to achieve this result, subscribers are screened, approved, and charged premiums based on the statistics of how healthy (unlikely to make a claim) they are.  If statistics and the law of averages don't work out to the benefit of the insurance provider's bottom line, they simply raise rates to make up for the 'loss'.

According to OpenSecrets.org,  in 2009, 5 of the top 20  lobbying groups by spending represent health care.  Their total contributions amounted to $112,712,403.00.  Two of the five represent the pharmaceutical industry, one is a national health insurance company, one is the American Medical Association, and the fifth is the American Hospital Association.

Now with a government that regulates everything from air travel to firearms to food in the name of health and safety, why would they allow drug and insurance companies take advantage of the American public?  Money talks.
 
What might fix the problem?

Campaign finance reform, tort reform, (by the way, if you add up all the money from individual  lawyers and their lobby they would top the list in total dollars with nearly $60 million.  Thank God they amass all those malpractice contingencies to keep their lobby going.), and some insurance industry regulations in the best interest of the American people -- not investors and politicians' pockets.

Maybe we the people should reform government, and health care reform will be serendipitous by-product.