- The profits of private insurers are so big that cutting them out would meaningfully lower costs.

- Private insurance clearly costs more than a government-run system such as Medicare.

- Mergers that have created a small number of huge and powerful insurers increase health care costs.

The first two statements are certainly debatable topics, especially since the words in bold were added to them. Remove those words and you get two absolutely true statements.

I've never heard anyone put forward the third argument as a reason health care costs so much.

Why isn't Mark Gimein trying to rebut these three statements?:

- In order to make a profit, insurance companies necessarily must kick many people with illnesses to the curb.

- Because people change insurers on average every 5 years or so, insurance companies have no financial interest in making long-term health a goal.

- Because insurance companies keep making their customers pay more for co-pays and premiums, even insured people don't go to the doctor's office as often as they should.

In my opinion, these statements are much more relevant to the topic.

Really? Insurance companies are making people do this? Or maybe employers, not willing to pay higher costs, are sharing it with employees in the form of higher copays and coinsurance. The companies are going to offer the plans that employers want to buy.

The companies are going to offer the plans that employers want to buy.

Does anyone really want to buy insurance? I mean, it's not like you can take it home, hang it on your wall and show it off to your friends. What you want is peace of mind knowing that if you were to suddenly get into an accident, you wouldn't go bankrupt. If that can be accomplished by other methods, (a huge bank account, a wealthy and caring family member, a health care system that doesn't screw over the sick), then I'm all for it.