A Free Market Brings Down Health Costs

A Free Market Brings Down Health Costs

What is the best way to make sure that Americans with chronic medical conditions -- those most likely to need costly or frequent health care -- can afford the insurance they need to meet their bills? The conventional answer, reflected in Mitt Romney's 2006 health-care reform law in Massachusetts and the federal overhaul signed by Barack Obama in 2010, contains these ingredients:

(1) Require everyone to have health insurance, with subsidized plans for low-income citizens. (2) Compel insurers to accept anybody who applies for coverage and to charge roughly the same premium for everyone, regardless of health status. (3)...