An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal earns that page a membership in the Anti-Universal Coverage Club.

The editors explain that the universal-coverage scheme Massachusetts enacted in 2006 is a perfect microcosm of what congressional Democrats are trying to foist on the rest of the nation: compel universal coverage now, worry about the costs later.

Massachusetts is three years into that strategy, thus its experience shows us where that strategy leads. Much as my colleague Mike Tanner predicted (repeatedly), it leads to higher taxes and government rationing. The WSJ editors write:

The state’s overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006.

Like gamblers doubling down on their losses, Democrats have already hiked the fines for people who don’t obtain insurance under the “individual mandate,” already increased business penalties, taxed insurers and hospitals, raised premiums, and pumped up the state tobacco levy. That’s still not enough money.

So earlier this year, [Gov. Deval] Patrick appointed a state commission to figure out how to control costs and preserve “this grand experiment”…

The Patrick panel is considering one option to “exclude coverage of services of low priority/​low value.” Another would “limit coverage to services that produce the highest value when considering both clinical effectiveness and cost.” (Guess who would determine what is high or low value? Not patients or doctors.) Yet another is “a limitation on the total amount of money available for health care services,” i.e., an overall spending cap…

[Patrick] reportedly told insurers and hospitals at a closed meeting this month that if they didn’t take steps to hold down the rate of medical inflation, he would.

The editors conclude:

The real lesson of Massachusetts is that reform proponents won’t tell Americans the truth about what “universal” coverage really means: Runaway costs followed by price controls and bureaucratic rationing.