Free Market Created Health Care Mess

Paul Waldman on health care for CNN.com.

For all the difficulties of the Affordable Care Act's rollout, Americans are more patient than you might think: A new poll shows a majority expressing optimism that the problems are going to be ironed out. Not only that, a majority continues to support the law or think it didn't go far enough. Nevertheless, the conservatives rooting for its demise have been expressing not just vindication, but triumph. "We could be looking at the collapse of American liberalism," said columnist Charles Krauthammer. "Liberalism is crumbling in front of our eyes," echoed Michele Bachmann.

 

Yes indeed, a glitchy website and people moving from junk insurance to real insurance prove once and for all that government should have as little to do with health care as possible, and the entire liberal project lies in tatters. That's a little like proclaiming that your team will inevitably lose the World Series, then go bankrupt and disband because the other team scored a run in the first inning of Game 1. But the momentary political situation aside, conservatives still face a fundamental problem when they confront America's health care system. Their ideology dictates only one solution to all health care problems, and that solution -- less government, more free market -- is exactly what gave us our dysfunctional health care system in the first place.