Those who want to see an end to spiraling medical costs should challenge the premises behind the government interventions.

The first premise is moral: that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no right to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. Health care is a service, which we all need, and none of us are better served by placing our lives and our doctors under coercive bureaucratic control.

The second premise is economic: that the government can produce a positive result by redistributing thousands of billions of dollars from its most productive citizens. This is the road to stagnation and national bankruptcy, not universal prosperity.