The Problem of Protectionism and the Broken US Health Care System

We all know that protectionism is bad. If someone proposes a 20 percent tariff on steel or cars the news pages will be filled with economists and other serious sounding people hyperventilating about how this tax will devastate the economy. Unfortunately, these voices are completely absent from discussions of the much more costly protectionism that allows our broken health care system to rip us off for hundreds of billions annually, and cost lives.

NPR and ProPublica gave us a fascinating acco...