bizarreville

Continuing coverage of the President’s Health care summit with 5th graders.  Next up for the class is Matt Burpmore:

Q4. How can we make the Health insurance companies themselves more efficient so that insurance costs can come down for the people?

Matt:  Why are the health insurance companies inefficient now?

President:  Part of the problem, Matt, is that there’s not enough competition among the health insurance companies.  When there is less competition, companies are not quite driven to reduce costs…so costs start going up.

Matt:  I see.  Thank goodness there’s not just one company running all insurance…imagine how costs would go out of control if that ever happened!  But is there a way to get more competition going?

President:  One problem is that Health insurance companies can’t compete from one state to another, so that limits how much competition there can be.

Matt:  Why don’t you just let them go ahead and compete in other states?  Is there some reason that wouldn’t be a good idea?

President:  Well, it’s complicated.  It’s like if your mom told you that you can only trade marbles with the kids on your street, but not the kids on the next street…because we don’t really know them very well, and they might try to take advantage of you.

Matt:  I don’t care if they’re on the next street.  If some kid there has a marble I like, then I’m going to trade for it.  Wouldn’t you?

President:  Yes, probably.  But there is still a problem with all these insurance companies just making too much money and getting greedy.

Matt:  Yeah, I know what you mean.  Last summer, my friend Johnnie Plunger set up a lemonade stand down the street and was charging 5 bucks for a glass of watered-down lemonade.  That was ridiculous.  He was being greedy, and I went over and told him he shouldn’t be so greedy.  He told me to…well, I better not say what he told me I could do…but I’m not sure if it’s even technically possible.  Anyway, I set up my own lemonade stand and charged 50 cents.  I had a line of customers a block long.  Twelve nano-seconds later, he dropped his price to 50 cents.

President:  Maybe there should be a government rule on the maximum price kids can charge for lemonade?  Say, no higher than a buck a glass?

Matt:  No, sir, I think that would create more confusion, because kids would just keep varying the size of the glass.  I think if you just left us kids to work it out, we’d work it out, trust me.

President:  Perhaps you’re right.  Well, kids, thank you for all your insights on health care issues.  If all of us in Washington were as smart as you, we could solve a lot more problems quicker.  But that would just put all the pundits out of a job.  Have a great day.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.