Deregulation Could Lead to Effective Health Care Reform

California is "squarely in the middle of the pack" for states in the area of health care regulation, according to a new study by the Pacific Research Institute that attributes $169.1 billion in annual health care costs to "gross overregulation" of the health care industry, a San Francisco Examiner editorial states.

The study also indicates that "excessive health care regulations and mandates" are responsible for the "deaths of some 22,000 Americans a year, 4,000 more than the 18,000 annual deaths attributed to lack of health insurance," according to the editorial.

The editorial states that the study "is realistic enough to recognize that its findings are counterintuitive to prevailing public thinking, and that government is unlikely to loosen its grasp on the half of health care spending it now directly disburses."

However, the editorial concludes that researchers intended the study to "help open the way for genuinely market-oriented reforms leading to better health care across America" (San Francisco Examiner, 6/7).