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One of the arguments against a so-called "public option" for health care insurance is that the government would bring unfair competition to the health insurance market.

As Zachary Roth over at Talking Point Memo explains, it kind of looks like health insurance companies view any competition as unfair. A report from Health Care for America Now based on data compiled by the AMA shows that 94 percent of the health insurance markets in the nation are "highly concentrated," i.e. served by only a couple health insurers, usually with one completely dominating.

As Roth wrote, "Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007."

This is just one reason why a public option is so necessary.

Enviromental author Gregg Easterbrook writes in an oped for the New York Times that continued use of coal as an energy source is "a future certainty. Half of our power comes from coal, versus about 2 percent from solar and wind: in the next few decades, green power simply cannot grow quickly enough to eliminate the need for coal." He says advanced carbon-reducing technology already exists for coal-fired power plants, but isn't being used, in part because regulators have pinned their hopes on FutureGen, a federal public-private project "to build a power plant that burns coal without any greenhouse gases."

The House-passed cap-and-trade bill that is now in the Senate might change that dynamic. Easterbrook writes:

"The first commercial gasification power plant, designed by General Electric for Duke Energy, is being built in Indiana. Yet, absurdly, most state public-utility commissions have denied requests to construct these environmentally friendly systems. Last year, Virginia denied a major utility’s request to build a coal-fired power plant that would have sequestered nearly all its carbon output.

"One reason Virginia gave for the denial was the higher up-front cost of a gasification plant. Yet, once greenhouse gases are regulated (and President Obama’s cap-and-trade plan would in effect tax carbon), the economics of gasification plants may become attractive, with low-emission plants costing less to run.

"Another reason for the denials is that utility commissions are waiting for the outcome of the FutureGen experiment. This is a classic instance of the best being enemy of the good. Rather than starting to cut coal-caused carbon emissions right now, we are waiting to see if a hypothetical system could achieve perfection decades from now. Meanwhile, emissions continue willy-nilly."

July Fourth is just a few days away, and that has people thinking about the founding of our nation. Some, however, don't know their history too well.

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint will be up for re-election in 2010, and he's busy raising funds for the campaign. In politics, a pseudo-patriotic plea never hurts.

I can’t do all this alone. That’s why I launched my Club 2010 team of Internet activists to help propel my re-election campaign. Just last week we received $5,000 from donors giving $17.76. I trust that conservative activists are willing to stand behind the ideas I’ve been pushing in Washington, so I’ve set a loft goal of raising $17,760 in $17.76 increments over the next five days.

Get it?  $17.76. That's just like 1776, and as DeMint writes on his site, "I believe the only way to take back our freedom is to return to the constitutional principles our founding fathers promised in 1776."

Of course the Contitution wasn't written in 1776; the Declaration of Independence was. The Constitution wasn't written until 1787, and the Declaration is free of "constitutional principles."

But hey, who needs accuracy when you have voters to bilk?

(Hat tip to Alex Koppelman at Salon.com for catching this.)

Ok, he ain't pretty:

But I don't think he measures up to this  past winner by a long shot:

A recent Congressional Budget Office report on America's long-term financial report ought to be sobering. Some want to blame President Obama for the exploding debt, but the truth is this day of reckoning has been steaming down on the nation for decades, and no one has made the difficult choices needed to avert disaster.

Obama has been concentrating on jolting the economy out of recession, promising to turn his attention to deficit reduction as soon as possible.

As soon as possible, however, may not be as soon as necessary - or so we'll argue in an editorial for later in the week.

Bernie Madoff, who ripped investors off to the staggering tune of $65 billion, was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Though it was the maximum allowed, part of me wonders if it was enough.

Tuesday, we'll remind readers that texting while driving will become illegal in Virginia on Wednesday, when a new law goes into effect. To be effective, though, drivers will need to be aware of the change and acknowledge the dangers of inattentiveness while text-messaging.

Gov. Tim Kaine was serious about dealing with transportation. Alas, the Republican-controlled House of Delegates refused to work with him to solve the state's infrastructure problems.

Now, Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds want to succeed Kaine. Yet neither is as serious about the issue. Both subscribe to fantasies that money will magically appear to pay for roads.  From McDonnell, the Republican, this is old hat. For Deeds, this is a grave disappointment.

We'll expand on those ideas in an editorial that will run later in the week but is being written today.

Keeping the trains running safely

The Metro disaster is tragic evidence of the gap between the growing demand for mass transit and the will to pay for it.

Financial disclosure rules need revision

Virginia's rules were adequate a decade ago, but other states have surpassed the commonwealth.