One regulation creates problems, which are used to justify the next intervention. For example, if Congress says mental health benefits have to be equal to medical benefits, the cost of insurance will go up. That will then be the excuse to force young people who don't wish to pay those premiums to buy insurance. Next on the agenda will be price controls on doctors and insurance companies. When companies flee the straitjacketed market, the government will step in.
Language is potent.
There is no way out of this short of the separation of medicine and state. There is no single public interest, and even if there were, the public-choice school of political economy has shown that the state is not capable of serving it. In the name of life and liberty, we must reject it. Mr. Richman is vice president of policy affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation. To subscribe to the print version of Freedom Daily Click Here .