Congressional Democrats have begun pushing legislation giving government regulators greater authority to block big increases in health insurance premiums. The move, which comes less than a month after President Obama signed the healthcare legislation, is aimed at giving all states the power to stop premium hikes deemed excessive and allowing the federal government to step in if the states don't act.

While politically astute, these efforts will not result in lower health insurance premiums. Health plan premiums are a symptom, not a cause of the problem. The cause of high health insurance premiums is high health care costs. State insurance regulators have no control over that, nor over the administrative costs of the insurers. If insurance company profits are abusive, then regulators can pare back profits to a reasonable level. The problem is that insurance company profits are an almost undetectable portion of our $2.5 trillion national health expenditures. Dramatically reducing insurer profits will not even appear as a footnote in the report of our health care spending.

Unfortunately, the medical insurance industry has been and will continue to be ineffective in controlling rising costs. The government must provide the solutions to rising costs, but under the reform model approved by Congress and the President, there are no effective solutions.