The CBO has just analyzed the two different ways the third party payers will always fail; either they will be powerful enough to stop providing service but keep collecting money, or they will be weak and succumb to the whims of people who set prices. Any market that doesn't have a suite of clients and a suite of providers, all competing on price, will eventually spiral out of control if people act according to basic selfishness. Monopoly or monopsony, both are unstable.

In the case of government health care, you have every economic problem sublimated into a question of votes, bribes and bureaucratic dithering.

Apparently Timothy Noah loves it. Should you?