Back in the U.S.S.R.

Writes Regina Herzlinger in today’s Wall Street Journal ($): “With the effective passage of the Medicare drug bill, we have just vastly enlarged the health-care sector. This is the one-seventh of our GDP that is run Soviet-style: where the doctors who are uniquely qualified to create and manage health-service businesses are prohibited from owning most of them; where entrepreneurs often must pass a local government smell-test before they are permitted to build new facilities; and, worst of all, where government dictates the prices and exact characteristics of the insurance benefits for which it will pay. Most private health insurers follow its lead.

“Small wonder that health-care costs rise at double-digit rates, while the rest of our economy perks right along. Back in the U.S.S.R.”