Governor Deval Patrick Wants Health Care Cost Control

Now that Massachusetts has nearly universal health coverage thanks to its Republican governor, Mitt Romney, the current governor, a Democrat, Deval Patrick, is seeking authority from the state legislature to, as the Boston Globe puts it, "give the insurance commissioner the power to essentially cap health care price increases." Those who think health care reform is mainly about cost control may cheer this development; those who think that government price controls lead to shortages and discourage innovation will rue it. There may be some advantages to seeing how this works out in the laboratory of the states before trying it on a nationwide basis.