Problem, Meet Solution

The problem:

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota used premium payments to fund $15 million in employee bonuses, cover $35,000 for a retirement party and pay for other questionable expenses, according to a state audit released Tuesday.

Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm said he ordered the company to make changes after insurance examiners found inappropriate or excessive expenses paid with policyholders' dollars. He said the nearly inch-thick report raised questions about compensation, travel policies, investments and severance packages.

Hamm said the report showed "a lack of judgment" by board members and senior management. It was the first audit of the nonprofit company since 2004.

What conservatives and glibertarians want to see as the solution:

Mackey's next suggestions — making individual health insurance tax deductible and allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines — tap into the positive forces of personal responsibility and market competition. By allowing tax deductions for individual insurance and increasing the pool of competing insurance providers, individuals could and would buy insurance at a lower price.

How often do we read that someone's health insurance premium has "risen 17 percent in one year?" Why wouldn't it, if there are only a couple of providers per state to provide the service?

Mackey argues for reform of tort laws, which he says allow "ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year." No wonder the pool of doctors shrinks while costs rise. The trial lawyers perennially block this obvious reform.

Medicare reform and treatment cost transparency round out Mackey's recommendations. Observing that "Medicare is headed toward bankruptcy," he proposes that "every American adult" should be "responsible for his or her own health."

To recap, a free market solution means that if America wasn't full of unhealthy people who are a burden on the health care system by needing health care, our terribly responsible insurance companies would be free and clear to continue taking America's insurance premiums and spending that money on whatever the hell they feel like that isn't providing sick people health care.