Competition bad for your health

I am having difficulty accepting the idea that "competition" is the solution to our health care problems. Healthcare policies are a fog of numbers, impenetrable and subject to manipulation at a moment's notice. Unlike an automobile, which can't change from an 8 cylinder to a 4 cylinder after we buy one, health insurance policies actually can and do change for the worse after we buy them. Mine always have.

In the time required to reach even a glimmer of understanding of the terms of a single health insurance policy, the average person could compare 10 cars, make a reasoned choice, and have enough time left to go to a movie. Review a single health insurance policy and there us barely enough time left to go to bed with a headache.

If you are about to get on the competition bandwagon, it might be useful to wonder how much of your non-working life the competition theorists assume you will be devoting to the study of health care policies in this competitive future. Will there be any time left for golf? And do these theorists assume that people in their 70s, 80s and 90s will ferret out the great health care bargains that are assumed to be out there in the competitive health insurance marketplace of the future?

Really?

Keep in mind that the engine that drives free enterprise competition is the profit motive, better known as greed, one of the seven deadly sins. And I read recently about requests for 56-percent rate increases. Is competition the answer? Not so much.

Alfred Y. Kirkland Jr.

Elgin