Every time government gets involved in our lives it takes a slice for itself. Bureaucrats create administrative oversight requirements (more government agencies and workers) and more data requirements to be reported back to these agencies. More overhead. And so big government was both a primary cause and a primary beneficiary of the system we have today.

Despite all the debate in DC and the media about the national healthcare crisis, the status quo serves all players except one — the public. The Beltway bloviates about affordability but ignores the basic question: Why does healthcare cost so much? Where are the initiatives to lower high healthcare costs?

As the healthcare segment grew, it became an increasingly important source of campaign contributions. In the 2016 election cycle in round numbers at least $500 million from healthcare and health insurance interests went into campaign coffers. A growing healthcare segment of our economy is a growing source of campaign contributions. An example of the quid pro quo was the ACA’s “risk corridors”. At the public’s expense, participating insurance companies were protected by government against financial losses. Insurance companies — experts at managing risk — pulled a fast one in managing their own risk by transferring it to big government (and more specifically, taxpayers).     Here….