The problems with HealthCare.gov and the Obamacare rollout go beyond the technical glitches, says Michael Gerson. He draws on economist Friedrich Hayek, who showed why highly complex systems simply cannot be managed by centralized technocratic planners.
From: Michael Gerson: Ailing Obamacare could become a crisis for liberalism – The Washington Post.
The failed rollout has already raised ideological issues of broader significance. It has reinforced a widely held, preexisting belief that government-run health systems are bureaucratic nightmares. And it has added credence to the libertarian argument that some human systems are too complex to be effectively managed. Perhaps the problem with Obamacare is not failed leadership but rather the whole project of putting a federal agency, 55 contractors and 500 million lines of software code in charge of a health system intended to cover millions of Americans.