Obama refuses to adopt health cost containment policies but attacks insurers for raising premiums

From The Daily Beast:

Following a meeting Friday with the chief executives of the country's four largest health-insurance companies, President Obama took to the airwaves Saturday morning to attack the group's latest rate hikes. "They couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums—by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "If we do not act, they will continue to do this." The president repeated his call to Congress to finish health-care legislation, which the House and Senate are working to pass within weeks. "I know it has been a long and hard road to this point," Obama said. "And we are not finished with our journey just yet. But we are close. We are very close. And so I ask Congress to finish its work."

My take:

Is Obama this ignorant about markets? Or is he pretending to be this ignorant?

We know there are at least two facets of the current system that are driving up insurance premiums.

One is trial lawyers - co-owners, with George Soros, of the Democrat Party - who play jackpot justice with physicians and hospitals. They sue, on almost any pretext, on behalf of plaintiffs who may, or may not, have been injured in the course of medical treatment. Often, they use the discovery process to identify any shortcomings in treatment that they can add to their case.

In response, physicians and hospitals protect themselves by ordering treatment that may not be medically necessary to protect themsleves from the legal process.

That drives up medical costs, as well as insurance premiums.

Second, the current system does not allow insurers to sell insurance across state lines. This defeats price competition and drives up premiums.

Conservatives have tried to deal with both of these shortcomings through tort reform and by allowing insurers to sell policies across state lines, but have been thwarted by Obama and congressional Democrats.

Obama's lack of interest is understandable. He has spent much of his life among Marxists, who have no interest in improving a system that they are bent on subverting, or overthrowing.