Ill Health: Bad Laws Corrupt Everything
Read Peter Suderman's real talk at Reason:
How effective is the individual mandate to purchase health insurance in Massachusetts? For years, defenders of the plan have touted its effectiveness—both at getting individuals to buy into the system and at reducing the potential for gaming that comes when you require insurers to offer equally priced plans to everyone regardless of preexisting conditions. But a new report indicates that more and more people are ignoring the requirement and gaming the system instead—and causing the state’s already sky-high premium prices to rise as a result.
True as this is, there's a blunter way to state the problem. Onerous and oppressive public regulations breed private corruption. And as private corruption accustoms a people to expect public corruption, officials struggling to hide the failure of those regulations resort to exactly that. The solution? As Peter says: "getting rid of the individual mandate and the insurance regulations entirely. After all, it’s tough to game the system if there’s no game to play."
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May '10
Re: Ill Health: Bad Laws Corrupt Everything
Your point is spot on. I'd only add that, among other characteristics, a bad law is one that cannot be enforced, or is not really even intended to be enforced.