It isn't often that the course of history turns on principles taught in freshman economics. But the fate of the health reform legislation is now in jeopardy in part because some Supreme Court justices have so far failed to grasp such principles.

The government defended the mandate...

A Rip van Winkle who dozed off in 1977 and awoke to read today's newspapers might feel he had not missed a thing. Then, as today, leading members of the health care industry were promising voluntarily to rein in the growth of health care spending. The industry promised parsimony to...