Health Care Reform and the Lessons of History

All politicians believe they know what to do about the high cost of health care. There's just one problem: most of them are not qualified to solve the problem.

During the 1990s, we had the failed Health Security Act. The key elements of this plan were to increase government regulation and decrease the number of doctors--particularly specialists.

Now we have the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The crux of this plan is to increase both government regulation and the number of doctors. However, there's strong evidence that the Obama Administration believes we should shift the emphasis of health care from aggressive, high-tech treatment to lifestyle management and hospice.

I admit that these plans have the potential to reduce costs. But I fear it will be by returning medicine (as experienced by the average consumer) to the 19th century.