Get Md. less involved in health care, not more

The distinction you see among the Democratic candidates for governor on health care is not really as big as you think it is (“There’s on big distinction among Md. gubernatorial candidates on health care: Single payer,” June 5). The difference is merely between those candidates who want to pile on just a few more regulations and increase public spending somewhat more and those who want to abandon the "free market" charade once and for all and go for full single-payer socialization of health care, along with all the shortages and rationing you get with single-payer systems in places like the United Kingdom.

Somehow, the popular impression of the shortcomings of American health care continues to be that it is an example of market failure and that all the problems we experience with unaffordable care arise from market forces. Nothing could be further from the truth! It is an example of government failure. Drugs are expensive because the cumbersome and inefficient Food and Drug Administration strangles innovation and gives cartel power to those big pharmaceutical companies that can afford to comply with regulations. Hospitals are crowded because anyone building a new hospital has to provide a certificate of need to the state, preventing expansion of the supply of medical services in a timely manner to meet high demand.

Many of these burdens are federal, and the governor would not have much power to remedy them, but at the very least the governor should not be making things worse. That means ditching attempts to force state residents to buy insurance that they don't want and instead removing whatever burdens there are at the state level to a truly free market in health care.