I’ve been calling HealthSource RI — Rhode Island’s health benefits exchange under the so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA) — a government start-up company, because that’s exactly what it is.  The government thought up a product, invested loads of money (loads of our money) to build up a system of franchises, and modified the law to its venture’s advantage, much like a big-dollar start-up might lobby government to change the law to its advantage.

One of the many problems with this approach is that businesses by their nature are designed to make money and absorb market share.  They often do so by providing better products at lower prices, but those are the means to the objective of revenue creation.  Because it can change the laws and take people’s money away, government shouldn’t have revenue and market share as its primary objectives.

I offer this bit of commentary by way of context for this passage in a Providence Journal op-ed by Gary Alexander, former secretary of Health and Human Services and director of Human Services in Rhode Island and current adjunct scholar for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity:

The cost differential is stunning: The state House of Representatives’ fiscal office analysis shows that at an enrollment of 70,000 (we’re at fewer than 30,000 currently), annual administrative costs per person would be $343. If the current mix of HealthSourceRI policies were issued via the federal exchange, it would cost just $186, or 46 percent less — nearly half the price.

From my point of view, government shouldn’t be in the business of brokering health insurance, but since legislative maneuvers, party-line votes from Congressional Democrats, lies from the president, and ridiculous reasoning in the Supreme Court have allowed it to enter that line of business, the goal should be maximization of benefits for the cost, not maximization of the amount of revenue collected or number of government workers employed by the franchise.