If health insurance premiums were as cheap as postage

I was watching The Colbert Report at lunch this afternoon and about 1 minute in to the clip of “The Word” something got on my nerves.  Watch for yourselves . . .

Did President Obama just criticize the US Postal Service?  Is the cost of postage stamps really an example of horrible government service at a really terrible price that is gouging the American public? I didn’t think it was, so I looked up some information and found out that not only does the cost of postage stick pretty darn closely to the Consumer Price Index, but also any increase in cost in postage rates pales in comparison to the increasing cost of health care premiums. See the graph and my rant after the jump . . .

Here is the source of the graph.

The reason I’m really thinking about this is the due to the very real possibility that the Democrats and the Obama Administration are going to let the “Public Option” in the health care plan be removed from health care reform.  I didn’t vote for Obama so that health care reform could be watered down to the point where it was essentially meaningless.  A public option is the only way I think we can A) insure the uninsured and B) bring competitive pressures to health care costs.  There are some areas where the government can just do the job cheaper and better. Health care (and mail delivery for that matter) is one of these areas and we should give government the chance to show it.