Tyler Cowen issues dire warnings about the dangers of extending health care coverage without first controlling costs. He argued that other countries went the opposite path of controlling costs before extending coverage.
Of course he misses the obvious point that the United States could directly take advantage of the success of other countries in controlling costs by allowing Medicare beneficiaries to buy into their systems. This would seem an obvious case where there is potential for enormous gains from trade, but for some reason the "free traders" don't want to talk about it.
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