This has several negative effects. One is that it decreases both competition and supply, both of which raise prices for consumers. This also means that states have the power to grant licenses to insurance companies, meaning that any new insurance company from its beginnings has to meet state-mandated standards. This is a huge barrier to entry, keeping newcomers out of what would otherwise be a highly competitive market and once again increasing prices for consumers.
In a free market, profits are a signal telling more entrepreneurs to enter a market. More and more firms will enter the market until the profits have dropped low enough to discourage market entry. ............
Obama has said that under his current proposal, he would eliminate these state barriers..........
This completely ignores the fact that, under the necessary and proper clause, the government is only allowed to regulate those industries that it must to carry out its stated function.

It should be clear that it is the government, and not the market, that has created our current health care crisis. However, as is typical, the government is placing the blame anywhere it can outside of itself. I do not mean to say that the government is made up of people that are inherently more greedy or self-serving than the rest of the world. If any private business was to make a giant error, and then tried to place the blame on someone else, we might be angry, but I do not think that any of us would be shocked or surprised that a business would do such a thing. Businesses tend to look out for their own interests.

The government is no different. It should not be a shocking or treasonous statement to say that the government as an institution will, all other things equal, look out for its own interests and try to deflect blame for its own mistakes onto others.
They have done this in cases ranging from the Panic of 1819 to the Great Depression to the Vietnam War to the recent financial collapse, and we should not be surprised that they are trying to do it in the case of the current health care crisis.

I do not ask you to indict those in the government and put their heads to the guillotine. I ask you to think of them as you would any other human being.They are no different than us; they are not inherently better or worse. And that is exactly why we should be skeptical of every word they say.

Elliot Engstrom is a senior French major from Matthews, N.C.