Health Reform: Classic Bait & Switch

Joseph Rago shows how the "healthcare" plan in Massachusetts is basically a crystal ball which provides a view of what ObamaCare will look like. Insightful reading, though not much fun. Excerpt:

In other words, health reform was a classic bait and switch: Sell a virtually unrepealable entitlement on utterly unrealistic premises and then the political class will eventually be forced to control spending. The likes of Mr. Kingsdale would say cost control is only a matter of technocratic judgement, but the raw dirigisme of Mr. Patrick's price controls is a better indicator of what happens when health care is in the custody of elected officials rather than a market.

Rago gets bonus points for using the word dirigisme which has the benefit of sounding like a nightmarish disease, which it is. The people on the left who hate the invisible hand and love the government's hands on an industry to make things "fair" will not admit how much this cripples an industry itself and downgrades the products and services, either because they don't care or because the actually love this side-effect more than the stated purpose of "providing health care for all".