Of course our Congressmen/women aren't going to be performing medical procedures on us (thank God, ha). You know what I meant. I'll edit it for you though. :)

And again, I don't believe you can blame private insurers for that. The government is largely to blame for rising costs.

(BTW throwing that figure around opens up a whole 'nother can of worms, but I'll not go there)

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. But I don't think you can blame government for rising costs. I think it's natural for an advanced society that has already found a cheap way to provide necessities like food to start spending a larger and larger portion of its income on things like health care and education.

There are certainly things the government could do to reduce costs though, like reigning in lawsuits through tort reform. Ironically I think having the government provide insurance for a lot of people will reduce costs as well. The government has way less overhead and doesn't care about making a profit. I know that sounds counter intuitive but think about it from the standpoint of costs to the consumer.

We already have Medicaid and Medicare. I've read so much about their role in the rising costs of health care that I wouldn't even know where to start.

I like Mankiw's thoughts on the public option: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/06/whats-point-of-public...

I actually take this back. Obama uses this wording as well, because he is trying to bring down the costs of health care, too. Regulating the insurance industry effects the prices of health care (sometimes negatively). I wish I could explain this better.