How much is a doctor’s skill and time worth? Is it what some bureaucrat tucked into a back office of a government building deems his value, or what a market deems his value? Do we accept the number that an insurance company says is a fair value to pay, or do we trust the doctor?

There is currently a debate around “Surprise Billing” on Capitol Hill, and again, a populist wave seems to be guiding the way. The proposed solutions vary from forcing doctors to join every insurance plan to setting the price that they will be forced to take — and almost all of them seem to ignore how any of the solutions will affect the market.