Health care

I rather liked the idea of health-care co-ops, floated by Montana Democrat Max Baucus. I seem to recall that Blue Cross/Blue Shield used to be non-profit in most places, but ten or fifteen years ago they went for-profit in order to lower costs to customers. It was a big deal in North Carolina at the time. That worked out well, didn't it?

(In a similar vein, I have wondered at times whether another factor in costs has been the dwindling away of Catholic religious orders dedicated to health issues. Yet another example of how progress is not always beneficial, even in a material sense…)

I also like the idea of Health Savings Accounts. Indeed, I own one, along with the high-deductible plan it requires, and I am largely happy with it, even if I've struggled to build as large a reserve as I'd like in the savings account proper.

I don't like the idea of a public plan run by the government. Claims that it won't be subsidized, or that it won't try to muscle out private insurers, fly in the face of recent attempts to expand S-CHIP.