Yesterday I said it's amazing how little has changed in health care debates over the past century. Today I illustrate by asking: What would more central planning in health care look like?

The economics staff of the Joint Economic Committee picture this:

I worked as a staff economist on the Joint Economic Committee for about seven months in 1993-94. During my short time there, I worked on two projects that influenced the debate over the Clinton health care proposal. The first was a flow chart that diagrammed the Clinton plan, in particular how it would allocate resources through command and control (global budgets, patient queuing, lots of new federal agencies, a patient ombudsman in Washington, and so on). Counter-critics said the diagram was a caricature, but no one said it wasn't accurate. Everything in it came right out of the Clinton plan that Ira Magaziner wrote and leaked to Congress in the fall of 1993. The chart was published in the Wall Street Journal on October 13, 1993, and later dubbed by an admittedly self-serving Dick Armey as "the chart that killed the Clinton health plan." A couple of months later, then-Senator Bob Dole displayed another chart to anchor his response to President Clinton's State of the Union Address. Fancier than mine, with lots of colors and slick lines, Dole's chart was likened New York Subway map.

In those days there were lots of charts flying around. Call it an age of charts -- thanks in part to Ross Perot's 1992 campaign for president. Hello again, age of charts. Here's a scan of my chart.