Many significant problems related to the Obamacare program implementation have surfaced, which has lead many to question how effective big government is at managing large-scale health programs.

This includes University of Madison – Wisconsin student Ali Sinkula, who argues that the free market system is better suited to address the health needs of the country. Her suggestions counter the assertion recently made by NBC’s Matt Lauer to conservative icon Sarah Palin that there have been no alternatives to Obamacare presented.

This belief is also grounded in experience. Rare is the person who feels pangs of joy when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles, or learning of the National Security Agency’s unwarranted invasions of our privacy. An endless morass of paperwork and dead-ends awaits those entering this vast bureaucratic web. Now Obamacare is joining the tangle, and conservatives are rightly wary.

Bureaucracy not only breeds inefficiency, but also inflates costs. Soaring college tuition is a prime example, and healthcare will be no different. Under Obamacare, Wisconsinites will already see year-over-year rate increases of 51 percent, according to Commissioner of Insurance predictions. If the government was handing out unaccountable money, wouldn’t you jack up your prices too?

Even more frightening than these increased expenses is the deprivation of individual liberty that follows Obamacare’s governmental expansion. In the words of Adam Smith, one of the founders of modern economics, “the statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would … assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.” Liberty is a kernel of American identity, and Obama’s mandate is folly indeed.

Fortunately, Americans are not limited to either Obamacare or our previous system. A third, better, free market solution exists. Compiled by the Heritage foundation, it is based on five premises:

1. Choose, control and carry your own health insurance;
2. Let free markets provide the insurance and health care services that people want;
3. Encourage employers to provide a portable health insurance benefit to employees;
4. Assist those who need help through civil society, the free market and the states; and
5. Protect the right of conscience and unborn children.

Health insurance should be personal, portable and capable of staying with an individual as he/she moves from job to job and from birth to retirement. Rather than being forced by Obamacare into government-run exchanges, individuals should be able to purchase insurance that can follow them through life. To facilitate a transition to this model, the government could, among other things, move from tax breaks for employer-subsidized insurance toward a flat tax credit that individuals could use to purchase their own insurance.