Irvine, CA--A growing number of politicians, including Senator Kennedy and Governor Schwarzenegger, are calling for the government to mandate “universal” health insurance coverage, claiming that the free market has failed to provide Americans with affordable health insurance.

“The free market has not failed,” said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “What we have today is not a free market in health care. The government funds Medicare, Medicaid and prescription drug coverage. It is responsible for the licensing of hospitals, doctors and other health care providers, as well as the regulation of drugs, health facilities and medical technology. The health insurance industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in this country.

“At every level and in every sphere, the government interferes in the health care system, driving up costs and diminishing the quality of care. To ascribe these problems to the free market is bizarre; to use these problems to justify expanding the government’s role in health care is outrageous.

“The American health care system is a disaster, but the solution is not more government. The solution is to establish a truly free market in medicine--one where the government’s only role is to protect the rights of hospitals, doctors and patients to deal with one another voluntarily.”

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