Fix individual market

Liberals argue the biggest success of Obamacare is that millions of people who previously couldn’t afford health insurance gained coverage under Medicaid. Great. So these people have a free lifeboat while Obamacare’s titanic disaster leaves millions of others in the individual market to float in freezing seas with a useless life jacket policy, if they got one.

Those millions of people effectively lost their health insurance thanks to Obamacare and its consequences: the extortion of exorbitantly high premiums and high deductibles. Many decided such “insurance” was effectively useless and chose to pay the fine. Others felt coerced into buying them.

Congress could easily fix that specific problem. Sue Lani Madsen’s Aug. 5 commentary about new approaches to health care offers two brilliant solutions: allow voluntary associations of people in individual insurance markets to get group rates and allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

If Congress could stop wallowing in incompetence long enough to pass a bill with just those two measures- no amendments allowed- it would plug a gaping hole in this disaster for the time being. It’s too late for congressional rigmarole to pass comprehensive health care reform this year.

Just do this one thing. Now.

Bob Strong

Spokane