Why are health insurers afraid of a little competition?

Poor health insurers! They can't handle a little competition. So their Congressional peons try to scare people with the idea that introducing competition into the health care market will let the government pull the plug on grandma. Fortunately, Americans are still capable of thinking for themselves -- a Washington Post poll suggests that most favor competition in the form of a health care plan with a so-called public option.

Now Congress -- which seems to respond so sensitively to poll results -- can embrace what the American people want in order to get re-elected in 2010. The irony here is tremendous. That's because 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney helped pass a public option -- government health insurance for those who can't get private insurance -- in 2006 when he was governor of Massachusetts, where 97 percent of the public now has health insurance, according to NewsMax.