The Market is Broken

From the people who brought you "Just Say No" to Health Care Reform there is this:

Health insurance leaders say they agree that individual markets are rife with problems but insist that the trouble is caused by factors beyond their control -- namely, the soaring cost of medical care and the churn of customers who enter or leave the individual market, depending on employment.

The sour economy has prompted many younger and healthier people to forgo or cancel insurance, companies say. As a result, insurers have had to spread the cost of individual insurance over smaller numbers of ailing policyholders who keep coverage they desperately need.

"A lot of what you see today is a product of the way the market works," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's Washington-based lobbying arm. "The market is broken. Those people who do need the coverage wind up covering the cost of everyone else."

Actually, having "everyone else" cover the cost of those who need coverage is the way insurance is supposed to work.