The “profit based” drivel that is so often repeated doesn't match up to the rest of the world. Most everything in your house was made by profit-driven industry, which works quite well in a competitive environment. It's a nightmare when laws are made that alter and destroy that competition. In this case, McCarran-Ferguson, ERISA preemption, and the tax penalty for purchasing your own insurance have increased costs and reduced the competitive market to about 5% of the population.

Also, if most of the nonprofit care was changed into for-profit care within 20 years, what caused that? Many people can tell you how to fix the car, but few have popped the hood to find the problem.

As for the cost of college, I've seen those rates skyrocket since the student loan program started. Maybe if they tied loan amounts to the expected value of the degree, colleges would have an incentive to lower their costs to make themselves affordable again.

Probably, a more honest assessment would be that these people die from lack of access to a family doctor. The problem with the way that it's stated, is that health insurance companies didn't cause the shortage of family doctors, the AMA did. I wish more people understood the influence of this group and their contribution to our current health care mess, by restricting access to health care while keeping costs high.

You'd think they'd want some sort of protection from that..

The thing politicians fail to realize is that even if they come from a state that has a minority supporting the Public Option, once it is implemented, that minority will turn to a majority when neighbor after neighbor, friend after friend begins to tell of the wonders of actually receiving health care free instead of mortgaging the house and sucking their retirement dry in order to pay for Jimmy's football injury or Susie's tonsillectomy. It happens every single day and the ranks of the un and under-insured will grow by the day.