One of the great things about the Obamacare fiasco is that we get to revisit many of the left’s talking points for the last half-century and more — and hand the points right back, underlined.
How many times have we heard about market failure? A relentless litany.
Today’s topic? Government failure.
How many times have we been told that markets aren’t as important as we think, since what really matters is managerial know-how? The “visible hand” and all that. It was a book, if not a movie. And its basic message was that a few college-grad experts — highly trained technocrats, all — mattered more than competition. Government experts have the information. They have the skills. The techniques are known. Don’t give us any of that “free market” mumbo-jumbo, they say.
And yet, while the federal government’s efforts to build a usable healthcare.gov website proved feckless, lame and wildly expensive, Obamacare’s increasingly unbelievable proponents kept the patter going. Some states were doing just fine, they offered. Maryland, for instance.
Well, no.
The Old Line State has had just as much trouble in its new line of pushing online medical insurance policies as other governments. Biggest problem? You mean, other than not being able to put up a usable website on schedule? Or getting only four people signed up on launch day?
The Washington Post informs us that state officials ignored warnings that “no one was ultimately accountable for the $170 million project and that the state lacked a plausible plan” for its scheduled launch.
The evidence is in. Want a new market “exchange”? Don’t turn to government.
Rely, instead, on folks competing in the real market.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
2 replies on “The Visible Hand Drops the Ball”
The total madness that some form of governmental program can act as efficiently and economically as free and voluntary exchange between the purchaser and seller of goods and services is amazingly prideful, whether it be for 300+ millions of Americans for health care, or the 6 billion inhabitants of this spaceship Earth.
Pride always precedes a fall, in this case a totally obvious and significant one.
Pablo, nice use of language as usual. I tune in often to see your quality placement and use of modernly uncommon words: Today’s word: feckless. Essentially ineffective, which is how most pundits these days – being overly analytical and conventional – would put it. Bravo!
Also, thanks as usual for your penetrating common sense insights about concentration camp medicine (Gulagacare?).
bw