New York Health Care

GOV.-elect Eliot Spitzer has to tackle New York's out-of-control Medicaid spending. But New York's individual health insurance marketplace is just as obscene a mess. What New York health care needs is free-market medicine.

The on-line brokerage eHealthInsurance compared the prices for a basic, family health insurance policy in America's 50 largest cities; New York City was the second most expensive. The basic family health plan costs $171 a month in Kansas City, $180 in Long Beach,Calif., $185 in Tucson, and a staggering $713 in New York.

State lawmakers have mandated that health plans cover a host of procedures and, including alternative health care services, far more than most states. Each mandated benefit adds to the policy's cost.

The incredible price of health insurance partly explains why - despite being the fifth wealthiest state - New York still has the second-highest rate of uninsured adults.