Our latest health care video short is up: “Why Consumer-Driven Healthcare Beats Socialized Healthcare.” And John Hinderaker of Powerline has an incisive analysis of the president’s speech last night to a joint session of Congress. The passage that stood out to me was this one petition:

This seems to me to be the most critical moment in Obama’s speech:

My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice petition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or panies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just pany. petition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down.

In fact, Obama and Congressional Democrats have zero interest in increasing choice petition. If they did, there is an easy solution. There are over 1,000 health panies in the United States; why do you think it is that in Alabama, pany has 90 percent of the business? It is because there are major legal obstacles to panies operating across state lines. State legislatures, and lots of panies, like it this way. Competition is hard. But if Obama really wanted to expand “choice petition” in health care, all he would have to do is go along with the Republican proposal to allow health panies to sell on a national basis. Like, panies, panies, panies, law firms, and pretty much everyone else.

The video and transcript of President Obama’s speech is available here. And more Acton analysis of healthcare policy is available here.