The Senate passed the Insurance Industry Protection Act. Glad to know that our insurance industry will be healthy. Now can we start to deal with how to make Americans healthy? And hopefully that can be done without effecting the health of the insurance companies otherwise, it will not happen. After all when the press counts the dead and maimed bodies resulting from the lack of insurance they do not count the number of died or maimed resulting from poor disease prevention, bad diet, lack of exercise etc.- such things have no corporate sponsors (well maybe Nike, I don’t know). Of course, congress just proved that you can be sick and still function if your primary job is your own personal survival.
Americans are very confused. Our problem is not really the insurance companies other than their ability to pay off politicians. Our problem is that health care in the USA is way too expensive and is not effective in preventing disease. The employer basis system of group insurance isolates employees from the true cost. Not taxing health care benefits means that the USA government is paying a large part of the bill for health care but has little influence. Medical malpractice suits causes doctors to order tests that are not required. So much money is wasted on the last year of life. If that money had been spend on medical research and prevention that last year could happen many years in the future.
The way our government has handled the health care issue is a demonstration of how ineffective and corrupt our government has become. It is very sad to say the least.
We need a single payer system because only that way there will be a true economic interest in dealing with the real problems of health care. Insurance companies have no long term interest in our health.
Two Thirds Done 
fully agree with your comments – how do we get the medical community and the insurance industry to take leadership in providing the real solution to health care. Government is never the answer to problems that institutions that have caused the problems have the responsibility to solve.
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Peter, thank for the comment (they are rare). I think the medical community does have a role but I do not think the insurance companies will do much to make a positive change. I disagree about the role of government. Lets not confuse implementation with strategy and policy. I believe it is the government that has to develop the policies. Taxation can be very effective in the implementation. For instance, the medical community could provide a series of recommendations for testing. The government could provide tax credits for those test. We would all benifit because prevention is the most effective way of reducing medical care cost. No insurance company will support this.
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