As we reflect on health care? reform?, let us recall how we got here:
- Government creates an obstacle (wage controls);
- Private industry works around it (by offering first-party health “insurance”);
- Government responds by deeming the circumvention unfair (while subsidizing it) and sets up programs to give everyone “access” to what its own regulations inspired (Medicare, Social Security, and coverage mandates);
- Prices go up, quality goes down, and government blames private industry (for having the audacity to make a profit selling what government can barely give away);
- And finally, government uses the rising prices as a pretext for taking over the industry.
You didn’t exactly hear it here first. But then how do we explain that the inevitable may unfold notwithstanding our objections?