Health insurance companies have proven the adage that if you can't be part of the solution, there's always profit in prolonging the problem. Last year, I ran for Minnesota state representative as a software engineer from Lakeville. I ran because I wanted politics to address the root causes of our problems, not simply react to the symptoms. As an engineer, I know that it is never OK to break the oil light, pretending that an impending disaster will go away, yet that is exactly what politicians propose on both sides of the aisle to deal with the health care crisis.

This crisis is rapidly getting worse every year. Why? Burgeoning administrative costs and unpaid bills from those in bankruptcy (62 percent of bankruptcies stem from unpaid medical bills) are increasing our costs. We're spending much more of our GDP on health care because of an administrative battalion of middlemen that has grown in size twenty-six times since 1970 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the cost of billing thousands of insurance companies results in a 10 percent fraud bill, according to the Government Accountability Office.

How does this impact our economy? Small-business owners last year said it's more costly than $4-a-gallon gasoline. Entrepreneurs can't find people to work without insurance. Government must cut to afford insurance, and nonprofits can't find workers without it. Health costs make American businesses uncompetitive. Small businesses are hurt most, although they provide most new jobs at the end of a recession.

President Obama has merely asked insurance companies again to cut their profits, after three decades of similar requests. Preventive care is also expensive. Though very sensible, it doesn't create the needed savings. And any vaunted "public option" may be driven bankrupt covering the sickest Americans, whose treatment costs more.

So what's the solution? The answer is Medicare 2.0, new and improved. All other industrialized nations insure their people with a single risk pool, including all citizens. Of all countries, the American government spends the most on health care per capita. If we moved that spending to a single pool, it would cover everyone with no reduction in care. Every cent paid by private industry and individuals today is wasteful. If we could eliminate our shared costs of billing, underwriting, executives, insurance profits, shareholder dividends, and uncompensated care, health costs would become affordable.

Republicans should criticize their representatives for continuing to support Ted Kennedy's 1970 failed, liberal experiment in HMOs that made our health care unaffordable and made our nation into China's welfare case. For all the taxing and spending Democrats stand accused of, the Republican Party under George Bush, Tim Pawlenty and congressional leaders has become the party of "borrow and spend." It is the height of hypocrisy to criticize homeowners for taking on loans they could not afford while Congress passes unaffordable government loans for tax cuts, bailouts and handouts to a health care system that drives American industry to insolvency. It bankrupted General Motors at over $1,500 per car.

As for Obama and Congressional Democrats, they likewise need to disavow campaign donors who are lobbying Congress to keep our broken health care system intact and to hobble any public option in the reform bill. Their hypocrisy consists of using a fraudulent solution. Failing to address the unsustainable growth of administrative waste, they invite lobbyists to the table who spend $20 million per day to ensure that any reform does not hamper, but releases, their cash cow that has ransacked our farm. They have offered lobbyists the pen to write the bill. They have offered to declare victory and break the oil light.

Colin Lee was an independent candidate for the Legislature in 2008 from Lakeville.