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Skyrocketing insurance premiums are debilitating our Nation's health care delivery system and liability insurers are either leaving the market or raising rates to excessive levels.

Here's where the insurance companies really fail us. They over-pay hospitals, specialists and drug companies and then raise premiums to cover the costs. Further, when they pay hospitals 115% of what it should cost to care for a patient, they are paying for inefficiency that can be dangerous.

Instead of forcing everyone to buy health insurance, Congress should pass a law protecting the uninsured from being charged more than the insurance companies are for a given service.

Competition among insurers would bring down the cost of health care insurance, just as it brings down the cost of car or homeowners insurance.

People have been talking about competition among insurers, and what they really need to be talking about is competition in the delivery of health care as well.

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.

I believe we can incentivize more affordable health care in general by better regulating insurance and creating meaningful competition for health care services.

The Affordable Care Act has been designed to provide health security by driving competition, lowering premiums, and protecting families.

It puts the provider in a situation of looking for ways to have someone else pick up a piece of the cost. As a result, every customer who has insurance ends up paying a 'hidden premium.' It simply adds to the health care cost burden.

To protect our country's economic future and the health and well being of all Americans, we must find a way to rein in out-of-control costs, provide quality, affordable health care choices to all, and make outrageous insurance industry abuses a thing of the past.