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.