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There's been a lot of talk about congress expanding existing government health programs to help the uninsured. But is that feasible? Do we really want that?

Our government has already grown too big and healthcare has become like a giant tire with a bulging rock stuck right in the middle: It no longer goes around smoothly, but thumps and bumps. Providing additional government funded healthcare would be like putting another rock in the rubber.

All government programs have to be paid for. The over-taxed, over-worked, underpaid middle class already bears the burden of an inflated government. To further expand the health programs would burden them so heavily they might collapse under the additional weight and disappear into the class of the working poor.

The government can, however, implement laws that would help insure that more Americans could afford healthcare. Regulation of select segments of the healthcare industry is a good place to begin.

The current laws which allow corporate conglomerates in the healthcare industry that are characteristically monopolistic, should be rigorously investigated and severely restricted in terms of capital gains. Consider the HMO. The advent of the HMO was supposed to have ushered healthcare into an affordable age. They promised all those communal perks - one fee covers all at 100%, affordable co-pays and reasonable monthly premiums. The problem is, those individual managed healthcare corporations grew into bigger healthcare conglomerates. The larger they became, the less we had individual choice and the higher the cost. Add to that, their self-appointed right to decid on the quality, quantity and who gets healthcare and who is denied, and you have a perfect example of a monopolistic monster who is protected by the government.

At present, most HMO's are financially unattainable and we're now given mostly a choice of PPO's with an 80/20 split. (Now here's a thought: That's what most health care plans were BEFORE HMO's but without the restriction of physician selection, specialists, or dictated drug formularies). So, we're right back where we started, before healthcare corporations, but without the freedom of choice AND with exorbitant prices. And the huge monster-wheel of the healthcare industry keeps thumping around and uses the same, slick marketing propaganda to try and make us believe that the PPO is a better and expanded version of the HMO and gives us greater latitude in managing our own healthcare.

Baloney! A multiple choice index

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