In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

Part of his informed, thoughtful analysis in WSJ from Jeffrey Flier, dean of Harvard medical school and former undergraduate minor in economics and philosophy.

As I opined two months ago, there is good economics coming out of HMS these days.