Levin: Health Care Debate Has Deeper Roots

A lot of us conservatives in the health care debate have the sense that when the liberals talk about containing costs they are really talking about expanding the reach of government into the system, and the talk of costs is just a cover. But I think there is actually something deeper than that going on....

[Openness to government-run health care] is the result of an excessive faith in our knowledge of a complex system, and in our ability to impose order on society.

If you have that faith, you want to maximize the knowledge and control of the system in the hands of disinterested experts who can impose order and best practices to avoid terrible and costly inefficiency. If you lack that faith, you want a functional market that makes information about costs and values available and exposes people to the consequences of their decisions so each can make a reasonably sensible choice, while caring for those least able to care for themselves.