Here's another chapter in the book that might be called "regulations increase costs with few benefits."

During the 1990s one topic of outrage was "drive-through deliveries." My own state representative at the time--an otherwise "pro-business" Republican--carried through the legislature a law forcing hospitals and insurance companies to guarantee mothers with "normal deliveries" a minimum amount of time in the hospital after birth.

Now two scholars from Columbia University have looked at the effects of similar legislation in California.

The conclusion? They "find no effect of stay length on readmissions or mortality for either the infant or the mother, and the estimates are precise. The results suggest that for uncomplicated births, longer hospitals stays incur substantial costs without apparent health benefits."