What working Americans wanted from health care reform was relief from ever-escalating prices -- their soaring medical bills and insurance premiums. What they got was ObamaCare.

But controlling costs was never the aim of the Democrats' health care reform. If it had been, Congress would have required insurance companies to offer options, such as inexpensive "catastrophic" policies, to pump a little competition into the market. On April 7, E. Thomas McClanahan at the Kansas City Star reported:

The pollster Scott Rasmussen notes that 76 percent think they should be allowed to choose between high-cost insurance plans with low deductibles, and low-cost plans with high deductibles. They want a choice between costly plans that cover everything, and affordable plans that cover less.

None of those choices is available under Obamacare.

An even higher proportion -- 81 percent -- say that if a company offers health insurance, workers should be able to "cash out" that benefit and use the money to buy a policy on their own -- and keep the difference if it costs less.

Consider the effect of such a step. Workers who chose economical policies would get a raise. Insurance companies would have to scramble to provide more choices and better value, or lose business in the suddenly broadened individual market. Why can't people have this option? Why can't we have an approach that encourages real competition?

ObamaCare just makes the system's "pre-existing conditions" all the worse. A free market can only work if there is choice. But if everyone is commanded to enter the market and buy a single one-size-fits-all product, then there is no market.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/04/obamacares_real_price_tag.html#ixzz1rzyVW3mS