The new federalism, New Hampshire style

A lot of governors don't want high-speed rail and at least one state is wondering whether it wants a new hospital:

New Hampshire Public Radio ran a story yesterday about Governor Lynch's request that hospitals in the state stop building new facilities.  Normally, governors never miss an opportunity to encourage new business in their state, because in most markets, greater investment leads to better services or lower prices.  Finally, policy makers understand that the normal rules don't apply in health care:

[T]hese facilities are driving up utilization and driving up health care costs. Those are costs that we all see in our ever-increasing health insurance premiums. To that, I say enough.

That is from Andrew Samwick.  This shows how deeply the current system of both health care finance and American federalism is broken.  It is not that the governor was suddenly persuaded by…Robin Hanson.  Instead, the shadow value of "money to spend as the governor wants it spent" is rising rapidly and old political equilibria are falling away, in Wisconsin too.

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