Only months have passed since Congress, in its superior wisdom, enacted central planning in health coverage, and implementation by the bureaucrats is in its earliest stages.

Recall that prominent among the virtues of this shining example of progressive governance — indeed, foremost among them — were “universal coverage” (or something close to it) and “cost control.” No more death in the streets for want of medical care. No more profiteering by doctors and hospitals. And no more dastardly efforts by insurers to align expected costs with premiums.

And so it is curious that the august editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle now calls for state regulation of health-insurance premiums. After all, “there are no guarantees that the [insurance] choices will be fairly priced.” Whoa, there, guys. What happened to that promised decline in costs? Even a profit-maximizing monopolist, after all, will cut prices if costs fall. And aren’t the Beltway regulators up to the task?

What is clear to all except Paul Krugman is that the “cost control” promised by the proponents of health-care central planning is a mirage, based as it is on reductions in compensation to the providers — the advertised 30 percent cut to doctors and hospitals is the most amusing — that will not and cannot be implemented. After all, involuntary servitude seems still to be verboten, and one need look only at the Medicaid program to see the effects of such cuts on the actual availability of medical care. So much, therefore, for the simpleminded claim of “universal coverage”; and so much for the mindless argument that “universal coverage” will reduce the pressures on the emergency rooms. What is fascinating is that even the hard lefties at the Chronicle seems to understand all this, even if they cannot articulate it very well; and it is no surprise that they now argue for an expansion of government coercion as a solution to the massive problems soon to be created by the previous expansion of government coercion. There really is a perpetual-motion machine.

– Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.