Palin: “Let the Free Market Fix Health Care”

Why is she so grumpy? At least SHE has health insurance.

After all, that’s worked so well up to this point. Wonder if she knows that the health insurance industry has an exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, so that they are not currently and never have operated in a “traditionally free market way of doing business in our economy?” They enjoy special rules that allow them to create monopolies and price-fix legally.  The exemption was supposed to expire in 1947, but effective lobbying has kept it in place. How else can you explain why the sole private insurer allowed to sell insurance in much of of the state of Michigan is able to propose a 56% rate hike?  In what other ‘traditional market-based’ economy would a company be able to pull that crap and get away with it?  They can do it because there are no other insurance options in much of Michigan (and even if there were, premium pricing would be legally fixed to benefit the insurer) so the population has no other choice–pay or be without insurance. Michigan is just the most outrageous example.  It is happening all over and the Republicans see no problem with this. This is no ‘invisible free hand of the market,’ this is straight up, in your face, very visible middle finger of the market aimed directly at the American people