THE BLOVIATOR has been posting all week on health care for the uninsured, and you should go there and scroll freely.

I don’t know what I think about this. Tennessee’s TennCare program — a sort of HillaryCare Lite — has been a disaster. Large amounts of money have disappeared (more or less literally, as there’s a good deal of fraud) but providers aren’t being paid. It’s unsustainable, and on the verge of collapse, even though it was advertised as a way to save money while expanding coverage.

I’d like to see everyone covered against major medical stuff, but when a program covers all or most of your routine medical expenses it’s not “insurance” — it’s just “free health care.” And such things tend to be overused, like all free or underpriced goods. I don’t have any solutions, but it’s obvious that “spend more money” isn’t a solution, either, because even colossal amounts of money aren’t enough, over time.

Long term, I think that many medical technologies will turn a cost corner and get cheaper (nanotechnology, and advanced biotechnology, should bring this about) but not now, and certainly not in the next five years. Probably not in the next ten.