The difficulty with radical health reform

This WSJ op-ed is bang on. This single fact will prevent any complete overhaul of the current system:

Americans want a lot of health care, are willing to pay for a lot of it and don’t like their choices limited.

Maybe this isn’t exactly new, but it is more certain. Americans rebelled against managed care, and particularly didn’t like employers forcing them to enroll. “One of the lessons of the ’90s is that every consumer insists on the right to choose a poor-quality physician,” Ronald Williams, chief executive of Aetna Inc., said at that Washington forum, which was sponsored by the Hamilton Project, the outfit Mr. Rubin and others founded to devise ideas for centrist Democrats.

So no matter how many experts prescribe big integrated health-care plans as the best way to get medical care, Americans won’t be forced into them. Some may choose such plans, but they want choice — and politicians won’t enact legislation that denies them choice.