[SeeSharp]

The banking industry is a cartel and has been in one form or another since the founding of the republic. It's not a good comparison. BTW, I wouldn't care if we ended up with three or four insurers as long as they were engaged in cut throat competition for my business.

but with Obamacare one of the biggest drivers has been the FEDERAL mandates ... which doesn't change in the Ryan bill.

That's true but we're trying to repeal Obamacare, which will return us to the prior state of affairs, some aspects of which are way overdue for reform. Healthcare costs were skyrocketing long before Obama came along.

[Alberta's Child]

The easiest way to "fix" Obamacare is to pursue MY "five phase" approach:

1. Leave Obamacare alone and let it go down in flames.

2. Let some smart, enterprising people (we used to call these AMERICANS) with expertise in health care and insurance come up with a package of templates for medical insurance plans that don't meet any of the Obamacare requirements but cost a hell of a lot less money.

3. Offer the insurance products for sale in one state, a few states, or a whole bunch of states.

4. Once they attract millions of new customers to these insurance plans, let voters in every other state clamor to get similar plans in their own states.

5. If anyone in Washington tries to shut the operation down, just tell Congress and the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services to go f#%& themselves and stick their Obamacare/Ryancare sh!t up their collective @sses.

You could easily get something like this up and running in plenty of time for them to be available to customers right around the time the 2018 Obamacare renewal notices are in the mail late this year.