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Last week, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death on a New York City sidewalk

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in what was clearly a thoroughly planned-out attack.

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Over the next few days, as authorities hunted for the killer, online progressives did not

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try hard to hide their delight that a millionaire health insurance executive like Thompson

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was killed.

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Social media was flooded with posts and videos with different ranges of subtlety,

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suggesting that Thompson at the very least did not deserve to be mourned because

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of all the health care his company has denied to poor and working people.

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Progressives framed the shooting as an act of self-defense on behalf of the working class.

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Before the alleged killer was caught Monday, they promised not to snitch if they saw the

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shooter themselves, and fantasized about a working-class jury nullifying all charges,

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leading to other CEOs getting gunned down with impunity if they oversaw price increases.

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The narrative that these online progressives clearly subscribe to and perpetuate is one

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where, in the United States, health care is a totally unfettered, unregulated industry,

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where because of a total lack of government involvement, wealthy CEOs charge whatever prices

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they want and then refuse to provide customers what they already paid for without facing

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any bad consequences.

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The characterization of health care and health insurance companies charging absurdly

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high prices while treating their customers terribly without the risk of losing them

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is spot on.

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But the idea that would cause this was a lack of government involvement in the

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health care system is completely delusional, and this delusion conveniently removes all

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the responsibilities progressives bear for the nightmare that is the U.S. health care

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system.

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Today, health care is one of the most heavily government-regulated industries in the

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economy, right up there with the finance and energy sectors.

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Government agencies are involved in all parts of the process, from the research and

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production of drugs, the training and licensing of medical professionals, and the building

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of hospitals, to the availability of health insurance, the makeup of insurance plans, and

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the complicated payment process.

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And that is nothing new.

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The U.S. government has been intervening heavily in the health care industry for

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over a century, and no group has done more to bring this about than progressives.

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It really began, after all, during the progressive era when the American Medical Association

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maneuvered its way into setting the official accreditation standards for the nation's

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unregulated medical schools.

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The AMA wrote standards that excluded the medical approaches of their competitors, which

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forced half of the nation's medical schools to close.

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The new shortage of trained doctors drove up the price of medical services to the delight

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of the AMA and other government-recognized doctors groups, setting the familiar health

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care affordability crisis in motion.

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Around the same time, progressives successfully pushed for strict restrictions on the production

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of drugs, and, shortly after, to grant drug producers monopoly privileges.

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After World War II, as health care grew more expensive, the government used the tax code

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to warp how Americans paid for health care.

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Under President Truman, the IRS made employer-provided health insurance tax deductible, while

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continuing to tax other means of payment.

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It didn't take long for employer plans to become the dominant arrangement and

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for health insurance to morph away from actual insurance into a general third-party

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payment system.

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These government interventions restricting the supply of medical care and privileging

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insurance over other payment methods created a real affordability problem for many Americans.

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But the crisis didn't really start until the 1960s, when Congress passed two of the

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progressive's favorite government programs, Medicare and Medicaid.

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Initially, industry groups like the AMA opposed Medicare and Medicaid because they believed

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the government subsidies would deteriorate the quality of care.

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They were right about that, but what they clearly didn't anticipate was how

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rich the programs would make them.

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Anyone who's taken even a single introductory economics class could tell you that prices will

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rise if supply decreases or demand increases.

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The government was already keeping the supply of medical services artificially low, leading

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to artificially high prices.

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Medicare and Medicaid left those shortages in place and poured a ton of tax dollars

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into the health care sector, significantly increasing the demand.

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The result was an easily predictable explosion in the cost of health care.

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Fewer and fewer people could afford health care at these rising prices, meaning more people

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required government assistance, which meant more demand, causing prices to grow faster

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and faster.

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Meanwhile, private health insurance plans were also benefiting from the mounting crisis.

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In a free market, insurance serves as a means to trade risk.

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Insurance works well for accidents and calamities that are hard to predict individually

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but relatively easy to predict in bulk, like car accidents, house fires, and unexpected

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family deaths.

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Health insurance providers were already being subsidized by all the taxes on competing means

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of payment, which allowed their plans to grow beyond the typical bounds of insurance and

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begin to cover easily predictable occurrences like annual physicals.

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And, as the price of all these services continued to shoot up, the cost of these

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routine procedures were becoming high enough to resemble the cost of emergencies, making

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consumers even more reliant on insurance.

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With progressives cheering on, the political class used government intervention to create

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a health care system that behaves as if its sole purpose is to move as much money as possible

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into the pockets of health care providers, drug companies, hospitals, health-related

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federal agencies, and insurance providers.

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But the party could not last forever.

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As the price of health care rose, the price of health insurance rose too.

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Eventually, when insurance premiums grew too high, fewer employers or individual buyers

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were willing to buy insurance, and the flow of money into the health care system

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started to falter.

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The data suggests that that tipping point was reached in the early 2000s.

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For the first time since the cycle began back in the 1960s, the number of people with health

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insurance began to fall each year.

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Health care providers, who had seemingly assumed that the flow of money would never stop

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increasing, began to panic.

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Then came Barack Obama.

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Obama's seminal legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare,

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can best be understood as a ploy by health care providers and the government to keep

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the party going.

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Obamacare required all 50 million uninsured Americans to obtain insurance, and it greatly

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expanded what these insurance companies covered.

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Demand for health care shot back up, and the vicious cycle started back up again, which

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is why the bill enjoyed so much support from big corporations all across the health

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care industry.

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Before it was passed, economists were practically screaming that the Affordable Care Act

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would make care less affordable by raising premiums and health care prices while

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making shortages worse.

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Progressives dismissed such concerns as Reagan-era, free-market fundamentalist

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propaganda.

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But that is exactly what happened.

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Now, the affordability crisis is worse than ever as prices reach historic levels.

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And because Obamacare brought American health care much closer to a single-payer system,

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the demand for health care far exceeds the supply of health care, leading to deadly

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shortages.

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There are literally not enough resources or available medical professionals to treat

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everyone who can pay for care.

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Also, the tax code and warped insurance market protects these providers from

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competition, making it almost impossible for people to switch to a different provider

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after their claims are unfairly denied.

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If it were simply greed, denying customers who had already paid would be a feature

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in all industries, but it's not.

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It requires the kind of policy protections progressives helped implement.

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And on top of all of that, despite paying all this money, Americans are quickly

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becoming one of the sickest populations on earth.

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This is one of the most pressing problems facing the country, a problem that

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requires immediate radical change to solve.

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But it also requires an accurate and precise diagnosis, something that this

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week, progressives demonstrated they are incapable of making.

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The American progressive movement is responsible for providing the political

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class the intellectual cover they needed to break the health care market

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and transform the entire system into a means to transfer wealth to people

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like Brian Thompson.

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Now, they want to sit back, pretend like they've never gotten their way, that

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the government has never done anything with the health care market, and that

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these health care executives just popped up and started doing this all on their

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own, all so they can celebrate him being gunned down in the street.

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It's disgusting.

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Brian Thompson acted exactly like every economically literate person over

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the last 50 years has said health insurance CEOs would act that

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progressives got their way.

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If we're ever going to see the end of this century long nightmare, we

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need to start listening to the people who have gotten it right, not those who

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pretend they are blameless as they fantasize online about others starting

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a violent revolution.