A long time ago, in a metaphor far, far away, there was a country named Ruritania.Ruritania was much like the U.S., except instead of spending more than 60 years trying to lower the cost of health insurance, their government focused its political energy on attempts to lower the cost of fire insurance.During the largest war in Ruritanian history, the government imposed price controls to stave off inflation. Changing wages was a punishable offense. As a way around the ruling, Ruritanian employers competed for workers by paying for their fire insurance. Employees didn’t report their new earnings to the taxmen at the Ruritanian Revenue Service at first, but the RRS agents soon demanded their slice of the fire insurance pie.Ruritanians howled in outrage, and Ruritanian politicians decreed fire insurance provided by an employer exempt from income tax. As a result, fire insurance companies marketed to companies instead of consumers, negotiated for bulk discounts from firemen and put individuals who tried to individually purchase insurance at a disadvantage.Many Ruritanians were unsatisfied with their fire coverage, so they lobbied their local politicians to mandate “better” insurance. Leaders of Ruritanias’ 50 regions forced insurers to cover things they wouldn’t normally cover. Instead of only paying for catastrophes, fire insurance kicked in for everyday expenses. Striking a match, igniting a stove and turning on the heater resulted in a bill fire insurance companies had to pay.Ruritanians were isolated from their own heat care expenses — and they lived like it — but they paid for the increased heat care costs of others through increased premiums. Heat care costs as a percentage of GDP skyrocketed, prices went higher and the mandates burned the Ruritanians it was allegedly intended to help.To avoid high costs, Ruritanians in regions with the highest fire insurance premiums switched to fire insurers from less regulated regions of Ruritania. Local politicians, upset to see their policies rejected, made it illegal to buy fire insurance from companies in a different region.So the mandates were enforced, competition was stifled, monopolies became prevalent and prices rose even higher.And every time prices rose, it fueled the flames of even higher price increases.The higher the price of heat care, the more people gambled by being uninsured. But the first to drop insurance were those who needed it less.The average cost per person increased as the less expensive customers quit. Prices rose yet again, and the cycle repeated.Geeks call this process adverse selection. Ruritanians called it unjust and complained to their politicians who decided to treat the symptoms of this regulatory mess with — wait for it — more regulations.To address the adverse selection problem, they proposed mandating all Ruritanians have fire insurance.Another proposed reform would make insurers ignore preexisting conditions. Insurers would have to charge the same rate to a warehouse full of fire extinguishers as to a house in the process of burning down. They would also make it illegal for companies to develop contractual limits on heat prices. The result would be higher prices and a wealth transfer from the low-risk to the high-risk insured.Others even called for a public fire insurance option. These reformers believed the Ruritanian government could contain costs despite its debt of over ten trillion rurs.As you probably guessed, this isn’t a story about fire insurance, heat care and Ruritanians. This is a story about medical insurance, health care and you.President Barack Obama’s proposed reform will be a wealth transfer from relatively healthy youth to our more sickly, richer elders. As a college student, you’re the target of the “redistribution.”If your state had stayed out of health care, you would purchase health insurance from companies competing across state lines, waste would be avoided and you would be financially safe from any catastrophic medical disasters.As economist Arnold Kling put it, “Claims would be rare and large, as in fire insurance. Premiums would be low, as in fire insurance.”But instead we chose one failed reform after another.The moral of the Ruritanian tragedy is clear: government action — violence and the threat of violence — doesn’t solve social problems.Until we learn that, we won’t be living happily ever after.Daniel Morgan is a 21-year-old economics senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_dmorgan.—————Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]