A true free market will save health care

I am astounded that politicians can continually add mandates on health insurance companies, that require them to cover more and more health care situations, and then turn around and bemoan the increasing costs of health care.

For example, the autism coverage mandate that was recently passed in Illinois is one of many nationwide that has indisputably added to the costs that health insurance companies must pass along to consumers. The multitude of mandates across the country from requiring tattoo removal, cosmetic surgery and birth control just to name a tiny few only serve to increase the costs that are borne by all of us, and fuel the ostensible outrage of the politicians who think we're oblivious to what they've foisted on us and our health insurance carriers.

The American health care system has suffered from massive political interference and the absence of a free market for many decades, and is the primary reason costs have skyrocketed and service for some has declined. Free the system from the political interference and mandates that have been foisted upon it, and implement sensible, politics-free regulation before we capitulate to a system burdened with economy-crushing political whim and vote-buying.

Federal government monopolies have never been able to run a program as efficiently or effectively as a vibrant free market of competing entities and this will remain the case with health care. Medicine is a blend of art and science. Politics are pure ideology, deceit and favor-trading in the pursuit of reliable votes.

I prefer a vibrant and competitive health insurance industry over political deal making any time. Politicians are not clever enough to design a flexible, efficient system that meets the needs of most Americans.

Scott Martenson

Elmhurst