In an article in the upcoming issue of the National Review, John O'Sullivan writes, "All health-care systems aim to achieve three things: (a) cost control, (b) universal access, and (c) provision of the full range of medical services. Alas, only two of these can be achieved simultaneously by any system." Ignore for a second the reflex to distrust anything the National Review writes about health care and assume that O'Sullivan is correct. By his own criteria, the United States' current system, which is incredibly expensive and non-universal, only achieves (c), so any new system that achieves two is an improvement. But wait! Despite having just told us the opposite, there is a system that provides all three, according to O'Sullivan: the free market. He illustrates this with no evidence besides a platitude about supply-and-demand that could have been lifted from a high school economics textbook. He makes no effort to grapple with how adverse selection distorts the elementary model he proposes. Nor does he mention, as Jon Cohn repeatedly has, that there are universal systems that are significantly cheaper and more universal than ours, while providing the same medical services as those currently available to Americans with comprehensive health insurance. As it turns out, O'Sullivan is not as interested in promoting a genuine conservative health care model as he is in intimidating his readers into fearing the liberal alternatives: after spending less than one paragraph touting his fix-all free market system, he proceeds to spend eight paragraphs on the horrors of the British National Health Service. I could have sworn the National Review told that story in their last issue. When, I wonder, will its editors shed these dishonest scare tactics and begin to analyze the Democrats' actual proposals while offering serious, substantial alternatives? --Ben Crair