The virtue of free markets in health care

Several days ago, The Wall Street Journal ran an extended interview with Fred Smith, the founder and CEO of FedEx. (here) After serving two tours of duty as a Marine in Viet Nam, Smith began a parcel delivery service using small aircraft and limited scheduling. Under his leadership, FedEx has grown into the largest parcel delivery system in the world. The company currently employs 560,000 people in 220 countries.

Smith's economic philosophy, and guiding principle, is really quite simple. Instead of using "ism" categories, such as socialism and capitalism, he sees only two economic options – fr...