American health care is a spectacular success. We don't have a "healthcare" problem. We have a health insurance problem.

There are longstanding deficiencies in our medical insurance system--lack of competition, unwieldy government mandates on coverage, substantial duplication of processes, among many, many others. While the ObamaCare monstrosity enacted by Congress does literally nothing to solve these issues, it is not wise for Conservatives to be merely obstructive in our response. Many legitimate concerns have been raised by the proponents of ObamaCare, and our path to regaining control of the Senate and the Presidency lies in our enactment of well reasoned solutions to the obvious problems. There are very few points of agreement between the Marxist wet-dream of ObamaCare, and the common-sense reforms to our medical insurance system that should be championed by conservatives. ObamaCare was never about health care reform, but rather about power and money, and the amassing of both by the left. No matter how disturbingly true that statement is however, it alone does not satisfy. The American people deserve a functioning alternative. Let's look at the power of markets and competition. Thirty years ago, computers were a novelty to the typical American household. These machines were expensive, temperamental and costly to maintain. Largely, computers were found only in major business and government applications. How have they become the ubiquitous, indispensible tools found literally everywhere around the world? Someone saw the demand, and decided they could meet that demand with better quality at a cheaper price, and they did. Then another came along and repeated the process until today we carry more computing power in our cell phones than the massive room sized computers of the 1960s. All at a price that enables virtually everyone to own one. This is what we know. Health care costs have been increasing at an unsustainable rate. Conservatives recognize that a significant portion of this increase is directly attributable to unnecessary government meddling in the free market, and we will need to roll back many of these nanny-state intrusions, (a herculean task in itself!) but perhaps the greater challenge will be to communicate all this effectively to a public that sadly knows more about American Idol than American government. I'm not suggesting we dumb down the debate. I am suggesting we re-frame the debate by concentrating our efforts on promoting an alternate plan; one that addresses the worries of regular families facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums and ever increasing deductibles. We need to respond to those needs with intelligent market-based solutions, true open market competition, and American ingenuity applying the principle of making a better mousetrap.

Hundreds of millions of consumers and entrepreneurs making day to day decisions will solve our problem far better and far faster than a cadre of academics and policy theorists in Washington D.C. We need to open the system to innovation by getting the government less involved, and the market more involved. We learn from the failures, and make note of the successes, then trumpet them again and again and again, whenever a conservative finds themselves in front of a microphone or camera. In this way we will wrest control of the debate away from the big government advocates. As conservatives, it is our duty to our country to unleash the power of the market on behalf of our nation. Competition and innovation are the only tools that are both strong enough and flexible enough to bring the cost of insurance down to a manageable level. We must begin with competition. Only after competition is restored to the health insurance market will the inspiration of innovation become visible in the industry. The numbers are enlightening. According to National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) numbers, Total Health Insurance claims annually, are roughly three and a half times larger than total Property and Casualty claims, yet our total premium costs for Health Insurance are more than eight and a half times larger than our total premiums for Property and Casualty. This revealing disconnect in costs can be traced directly to the lack of interstate competition amongst health insurers and the enormous burden of complying with myriad state and federal government mandates. Our first step is to open health insurance marketing nationally. Allow companies to sell and market health insurance across state lines as we do with automobile insurance. We should enable consumers to make decisions regarding the extent of coverage they elect in their plan. Eliminate federal mandates of coverage in favor of state decisions on what basic plans must offer, or better yet, devolve these decisions to the local and individual level. The denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions must end, along with adding portability of coverage. These are not difficult problems to address when you allow national and international economies of scale to work their magic. We can afford to cover everyone if everyone elects coverage, this being the obvious reason behind the unconstitutional "individual mandate" in the ObamaCare bill. However, the way to accomplish universal coverage is not by government fiat, but rather by allowing market competition to make health insurance the financial equivalent of property and casualty insurance, or better yet, computers and cell phones.

When premiums are low, many more people will elect to make room in their budget to

pay them. Innovation in market offerings can attract a younger and younger demographic by devising plans that meet their needs, but generate enough additional What one insurance company declines to offer in a plan will become a niche filled by another company. Competition will result in a leveling of coverage in much the same way as competition has leveled the coverage between auto insurers. From one company to the next, the plan offerings are nearly identical, and a market shifting innovation by one company results in a competing innovation by another company. It's not rocket science, it's capitalism, and we Americans are darn good at it. The solutions are ridiculously obvious, unfortunately, so is the unwillingness of our representatives to implement them. Repeal of ObamaCare is essential, but should not be attempted until there is a viable alternative to offer the American people. The first initiative of the 112th Congress should be to defund the bill, complete with prohibitions against the shadow budgets controlled by Obama's Czars being redirected to replace the funding denied by Congress. The second initiative of Congress should be to defund the Czars. They are the operating power of the administration, and are entirely unaccountable despite wielding vast authority and near limitless budgetary discretion. It is the Czars, not the Cabinet appointees, who are implementing Obama's agenda. If they are not halted, then any reforms devised by Congress will be undermined and defied by the Czars. Conservatives are individualists, but that does not mean we cannot act collectively. We simply prefer to solve a problem in a way that maximizes individual freedom rather than aggrandizing the role of government. Our liberal progressive opponents are so convinced that they are the smartest people in the room, they are pathologically unable to allow the common folks to make their own decisions. Abraham Lincoln once said that God likes ordinary people best. That's why he made more of them than any other kind. America was founded with reliance on the wisdom of the everyday man. God, Lincoln and our Founding fathers understood this. It's high time our current crop of politicians learned it as well.