With all that is going on currently in Washington in regards to the health care reform, it appears that the implementation of a health care cooperation is still on the table. Again, the idea behind a cooperative is to create large groups in an effort to lower cost by spreading risk and medical expenses over a greater number of people.

But as I have discussed in previous posts, the question remains whether or not they are actually going to be able to negotiate lower prices, and thus lower health care costs? Furthermore, cooperates (if implemented) will be facing a major hurdle; namely, whether or not they are going to be able to achieve the level of enrollment needed to be truly effective. My feeling is no. Cooperatives have been attempted in the past, and never really achieved any major success. And even if they were implemented, I not quite positive as to whether or not they would develop to a level that would offer an means of real competition with the private insurance carriers to help drive down cost. The private insurance companies already have huge nationwide networks, so let’s look into things like tax credits to drive more people to own their health insurance and make them responsible to manage their own health care dollars.