That's why I only was with DeMint in stating the desirability of lowering health care costs, not the socialism. You can be against socialism without descending to the "let them eat cake" track. Conservatism should not equal heartlessness. I'm for more Ronald Reagan and less Ayn Rand in conservative mindset.
Health care -- more accurately, health insurance -- costs have risen in part because of people thinking the government has the power to lower them. Markets are independent, dynamic forces that will always elude control of a centralized force; markets, like butterflies, must be free to thrive. It's a fact of life, just like water is wet and kittens and puppies grow up. It is beyond our control -- only a mindset of pompous presumption or amoral intent attempts to manipulate it.
The ONLY way the government can lower health insurance and health care costs is by GETTING OUT OF THE WAY. There is another dynamic, too, that is behind forcing up the costs of health care, as it is behind forcing the imaginary nonsense of "alternative energy like wind and algae! We need to get on it now!", as the clearly-intelligent-liberal-female-college-student-sounding person urgently warns in one of Chevron's current radio ads.
Health care costs are going up because an advertising campaign is scaring the hell out of Americans every day and convincing them that they're in grave danger every instant of their lives and need considerable "health care" to make sure they live to their next decade. It's disgusting.
The government nanny-state good-mother presumption of providing all of this is fueled by the fear campaign. It's a potent duo.
Conservatism should not equal heartlessness.
You want heartlessness???!!??? How about millions of good Americans enduring jobs they hate and fear abject abandonment solely because they don't want to lose their "health benefits."
In a free market, health insurance and health care would be affordable to the level of the demand in the self interst of all concerned. In a market regulated heavily by government and marketing campaigns for products, currently so-called "health care" and "alternative energy!" that are ultimately tax subsidised, you have a frightened people who are slaves to an illusion.
THAT is heartlessness. Conservatives support true charities more tha liberals because they are of right and moral compassion. The real cruelty and brutality is fomenting a situation where free people are slaves to fear.