What an excellent point

Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek asks a very good question in a letter to the NY Times.

Apart from supplying national defense, policing, and courts of law, there’s no duty that people believe to be more central to the core role of government than building and maintaining infrastructure.  So if government can’t or won’t perform one of its core functions, why entrust it with additional functions – such as managing the costs of medical care – that are not at its core?

Yes.  Why would anyone think the Government, which can’t do the basic things it’s charged with doing efficiently, can handle more complicated things, like the entire health care industry?