President Obama has wants empower the federal government to forbid insurers from increasing their premiums more than the authorities allow. Two reactions to this part of the president’s health care proposal:
Don Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek on price controls:
What cool adventures await us if Mr. Obama succeeds in giving Uncle Sam power to control insurance rates? Reduced coverage? Hidden fees aimed at skirting government regulations? Surly service? More trouble and delays collecting on our policies?
And guess who wrote the following in 1994?
…History clarifies that choice: Previous government efforts to regulate prices in peacetime have invariably failed. Moreover, government attempts to control prices in the health care sector would undermine concurrent efforts to restructure the marketplace…
The idea of controlling costs by government fiat is seductively simple. But it rests on a conceit as persistent as it is damaging: that government bureaucracies can allocate resources more wisely and efficiently than millions of consumers and providers pursuing their interests in the marketplace.
It was David Kendall Progressive Policy Institute. Thanks to Michael Cannon for posting this quote – see Cannon’s post about Obama’s plan for a longer quote and more critique:Obama’s ‘Best’ Idea? Rationing Care via Clinton-esque Price Controls.
(Thanks to John Stossel for pointing our Boudreaux’s post.)
