The Catheter to Serfdom: Crony Capitalist Hospitals

Obamacare by from National Review, August 7, 2013

In the current issue of National Review, I have a lengthy piece on a problem that has vexed conservative for decades: Why is it that government keeps growing, despite valiant efforts by conservatives to oppose that growth? The answer, I contend, is that while we have had modest success reining in discretionary spending, the growth in health-care entitlement spending has overwhelmed those efforts.

The growth in health-care entitlement spending, in turn, is driven by the special interest that has the most to gain from coercing taxpayers to spend more money on health care: hospitals. Hospitals’ political and economic power, and their exaggerated reputation as pillars of their communities, has ensured that every health-care debate has ended with hospitals receiving greater taxpayer subsidies than ever before. There is no industry that is, collectively, a bigger crony capitalist in terms of taxpayer funding than hospitals–not even the defense industry.

Continue reading this piece from National Review here.