MSAs: Coburn Calls for Free Market Cost-Containment

      Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK), in a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor, writes that the nation's health care crisis is caused by the absence of free market pressures, with doctors and patients having no incentive to keep costs down. He argues health coverage "should be bought and sold like all other forms of insurance ... but we are not trusted to buy our own health insurance. Employers should abandon their role as middle man by setting up 'Medical IRA' accounts," and the government should make health care costs tax deductible. Coburn concludes, "Today, the proponents of national health care prefer an incremental strategy that seduces the American people by guaranteeing 'rights' that will decrease health care quality and access for all Americans" (3/8).