Health Care Insanity

A popular definition of insanity is "repeating the same actions and expecting a different result".
The private medical expense insurance industry has been around in one form or another for more than sixty years. The insurers trumpet the mantra that the industry
offers healthy competition in benefits and costs, so if it ain't broken, why fix it? Particularly if the evil, ineffective "government" would get involved in the fix.
The facts contradict the industry's hype. If the private system is so efficient, and benefits are provided to everyone, at reasonable cost, and the quality of the care
for which they will allow payment is so high, why have we had a health care crisis over more than 40 years? Why is congress spending so much time in every session
on the subject?
Under the surface many in congress are aware that a single payer system would be the
best solution. The powerful vested interests that are arrayed against such a solution control the votes of enough members to prevent such a plan from coming to a vote. So they will come up with a patchwork plan with just enough changes to give the appearance of progress but which will preserve the status quo, and the problems
and inequities within it.
Health care consumes such an enormous share of the nation's assets that recovery
from the current depression cannot occur unless its costs are reigned in. The status quo will mean deficits increasing annually, a drag on business recovery (to say nothing of expansion), and an increasing portion of the public without health care insurance. Don't we have a right to expect better from our Congress?