a competitive health insurance market would help a lot!

The title of the first in a series from Ann Coulter at TownHall.com...

(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies.

You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete....Tiny little France and Germany have more competition among health insurers than the U.S. does right now....where a federal law allows states to ban interstate commerce in health insurance.

U.S. health insurance companies are often imperious, unresponsive consumer hellholes because they're a partial monopoly, protected from competition by government regulation....Liberals think they can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly...

It's the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it's screwed up because there's not enough government oversight (it's the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of "reform."...

(2) National health care will "increase competition and keep insurance companies honest"...

[See above.] Government-provided health care isn't a competitor; it's a monopoly product paid for by the taxpayer. Consumers may be able to "choose" whether they take the service -- at least at first...Obama himself compared national health care to the post office -- immediately conjuring images of a highly efficient and consumer-friendly work force -- which, like so many consumer-friendly shops, is closed by 2 p.m. on Saturdays, all Sundays and every conceivable holiday...But what most people don't know -- including the president, apparently -- with certain narrow exceptions, competing with the post office is prohibited by law....

(3) Insurance companies are denying legitimate claims because they are "villains."

...in a free market [see above], such an insurance company couldn't stay in business. Other insurance companies would scream from the rooftops about their competitor's shoddy business practices, and customers would leave in droves....

(5) Government intervention is the only way to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The only reason most "pre-existing" conditions aren't already covered is because of government regulations that shrink the insurance market to a microscopic size, which leads to fewer options in health insurance and a lot more uninsured people than would exist in a free market....