I would happily sign the Economist‘s editorial today on US healthcare myself (but for that paper’s irritating misuse of the word “America”). Many ‘Bloggers with an unthinking fetish for “market solutions” would do well to give it and the associated special report a scan:

[N]owhere has a bigger health problem than America. Soaring medical bills are squeezing wages, swelling the ranks of the uninsured and pushing huge firms and perhaps even the government towards bankruptcy.

America’s health system is unlike any other. The United States spends 16% of its GDP on health, around twice the rich-country average, equivalent to $6,280 for every American each year. Yet it is the only rich country that does not guarantee universal health coverage.

In the longer term, America, like this adamantly pro-market newspaper, may have no choice other than to accept a more overtly European-style system.

To quote this week’s Normblog profile:

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > That instincts or feelings trump facts. They don’t—get over it.