Elizabeth Wright

Soon after the Massachusetts Bay Colony was created in 1629, its leaders attempted to institute a “just price” for goods and labor.  Economist Gary North wrote in a May 1, 1974 article, “The Puritan Experiment with Price Controls,” that in 1630 “a law was passed which established wage ceilings for carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, sawyers, and thatchers.  Common laborers were limited to twelve shillings a day, or six if meat and drink were provided by the employer.  Any artisan violating this statute was to be assessed a ten shilling fine.  The effect of these wage ceilings must have presented itself almost immediately: an excess of demand for the services of artisans over the available supply.  Under such conditions, it is always difficult to recruit labor.  Within six months, these wage ceilings were repealed, leaving wages ‘free and at liberty as men shall reasonably agree.’”

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as ObamaCare, has chucked more money down the memory hole than Agent J’s Neuralyzer in Men in Black.  More than $5.3 billion has been doled out to 48 states and the District of Columbia, ranging from planning grants to establishment grants by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), to create state-based online exchanges; $2.4 billion in start-up and solvency loans have been provided to establish 23 Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (CO-OP); and as of September 2014, $2.1 billion was spent to build the Federally-facilitated exchange, Healthcare.gov.