Conservatives shouldn’t get too excited defending insurance companies. Yes, the liberal tactic of scapegoating private actors in order to justify an expansion of government power is deplorable.  Defenders of free markets have a right to object to those efforts.

But we must also be careful not to forget that these very same private actors are not principled believers of free markets, but rather self-interested entities more than willing to advocate for government meddling when it suits their own agenda.  I made this very argument regarding Wal-Mart’s embrace of government health care mandates, and Tim Carney makes it now regarding the insurance companies themselves:

Dear conservatives: Health insurance companies are not your friends. Keep opposing a new government-run insurer, a single-payer plan, and new regulations on the HMOs. But grant that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is correct on this: Insurance companies are villains.

Insurance companies lobby for big-government regulations, subsidies, mandates, and tax-code distortions that funnel them money, keep out competition, and stultify innovation. These policies preserve the employer-based health-care system that mocks the idea of free-market competition. Then they cry “unfair competition” when government threatens to encroach on their government-protected monopolies.

But they’re not just lobbying against a government option. Today, health insurers are lobbying to force you and me to buy their product or face a tax hike (the individual mandate).

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Big government advanced on behalf of special interests is just as deplorable as that advanced by power hungry liberals.

Update: John Stossel also tackled this issue.

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