The VA scandal points to a systemic problem in U.S. health care: there are not enough care providers to meet patients’ demand. Shinseki’s resignation, and tinkering with how the VA operates, won’t cure what ails us.

C-sections are both more expensive and riskier than natural births, yet doctors perform them far more often than necessary. The fee-for-service model is to blame.

The Federal government has just approved Maryland’s new attempt to bring down health care prices with a cap on hospital spending. Since the 1970s, Maryland has been setting prices for procedures (it is the only state to do so), but controlling costs through bureaucratic fiat isn’t as simple as it might seem. The first system produced perverse incentives, and undoubtedly this system will produce all sorts of unexpected costs as well—perhaps, for example, doctors leaving the state to practice where they can make more money.