Just because conservatives, myself included, believe (quite rightly) that the individual mandate portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is completely outside of the scope of what Congress is constitutionally permitted to regulate, it doesn’t mean that we also believe that nothing should be done to improve our health care system.

Indeed, what was once the best healthcare in the world has become expensive, byzantine, and difficult to understand. We could argue about the reasons–repeated government interventions in the healthcare market going back several decades, the rising cost of living, an exploding Baby Boomer generation, longer life spans, and so on–but the reality is: it’s more expensive, and it’s hurting all of us, especially those on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

We’ve all had the experience of dealing with the logothetes of one insurance company or another, of hospitals, or Medicaid and Medicare administration. It’s almost never easy to find an answer, and it’s a daunting and intimidating process. [cont…]