Taxing Hospitals Is a Lousy Way to Fix Health Care

Before Obamacare passed, we were bombarded with statistics about the uncompensated care that hospitals provide. The numbers were large -- in the tens of billions -- and the implication was that this was something of a national emergency. Certainly it was one very good reason to pass the Affordable Care Act, so that hospital budgets wouldn’t groan under unpaid bills, and the people getting care could be sure that they wouldn't get turned away at the hospital door.

Seven years later, Obamacare is entrenched, and uncompensated care seems to have become a smaller problem. Which is -- bad?