Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost.

• Enact Medicare reform.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

John Mackey  online.wsj.com

From Mitt’s interview with CBS news-

Mitt Romney Encourages Obama to Stay Out of Insurance Business

Mitt Romney has some advice for President Obama: Don’t get into the insurance business.

The former Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor offered his insight on the president’s health care reform plan in an exclusive interview with The Early Show Wednesday.

As governor, Romney helped the state achieve a form of near-universal health care, though he emphasized that his plan did not involve the government becoming the source of insurance for state residents. “That’s a mistake,” Romney said, alluding to Mr. Obama’s plan, who is trying to extend health benefits for more than 50 million uninsured Americans.

A recent CBS/New York Times poll reports 50 percent think the government would be better than insurance companies at providing medical coverage.

Romney, vehemently disagreed. “It’s the wrong way to go,” he said.

The former GOP presidential hopeful also applauded Mr. Obama’s latest comments on Iran in which he said he was appalled at the regime’s treatment of protesters. Romney said he was glad he finally did “rise to the occasion.”

Watch the full interview below.

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