The problems of America's health care system can best be addressedthrough market-based solutions. The evidence indicates that undernational health insurance, the promise of coverage becomes healthrationing, access to universal coverage means delays in access tocare, official fairness yields to favoritism by officials, freedomof choice becomes coerced conformity, and democratic deliberationis replaced by bureaucratic decision-making.
President Obama's proposed Institute for Comparative Effectivenesswould mean more government control of private medical decisions. Itis clear from the British experience and other internationalexamples that a comparative effectiveness strategy that relies oncentral planning and coercion would be counterproductive and wouldlead to cost constraints that could worsen patients' medicalconditions and damage the quality of their lives.