Brown's Win Will End Obama Care

The system works. Scott Brown has done what weeks ago seemed impossible, winning the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's senatorial seat in a state that favored Barack Obama by 26 percent in the fall — a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than three-to-one.

As a result, national health care reform — as passed out of the United States House and Senate — is effectively dead. Yes, Democrats could pull shenanigans and ramrod it through against the will of a majority of Americans, but that would be political suicide. Any resulting bill would be undone soon after an angry political revolution in the fall.

Brown won because Americans, even in ultra liberal Massachusetts, don't see any way either version of the health care bill can possibly work. Each forces Americans to buy health insurance, without doing a thing to increase the supply of health care to go around. Anyone with a high school education in economics knows that increasing demand, without a corresponding increase in supply, means higher prices and longer waits.

Democrats have been stupid in their approach to health care, and Republicans have been stupider. With this last minute, Hail Mary escape from some of the most dangerous legislation Americans have faced, it's time for Republicans and Democrats to start over with health care reform.

The system in the United States is a mess. Most of the major problems, however, stem from longstanding government meddling in the free market.

The tax code has caused a system in which most people buy insurance through an employer, without shopping among competitors for the best and fairest prices. The non-competitive insurance policies, products of the tax code, eliminate the traditional buyer-seller relationship in which buyers insist that sellers give them the fairest, most competitive, most efficient pricing.

A complex network of state and federal laws force consumers to buy policies full of coverage they don't need. Regulations preclude most Americans from buying insurance from insurers in other states, thus reducing competitive pricing. Laws in a majority of states restrain the number of hospitals and clinics that private entrepreneurs are allowed to open, reducing competitive pricing and consumer options.

The morass of anti-consumer, anti-competitive regulations has caused health care costs and insurance to soar, resulting in health care becoming a commodity out of reach for tens of millions of hardworking Americans.

Going forward, Congress and President Obama need an entirely different approach to health care reform. They must look at existing government regulations that are keeping the health care market from working to the advantage of consumers. Comprehensive health care — in the form of reforms that would free and empower consumers — could resolve most of the problems in America's imperfect health care system. Perhaps the new Sen. Brown could lead this effort. It would be a plan Americans could embrace, rather than reject with seismic statements like the one in Massachusetts today.

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