The problem with having the government controlling the health insurance business is that it never says no, except when you ask if you can please stop paying so much.

Are you a pharmaceutical company marketing an expensive new drug to help people quit smoking, a birth control method that costs more than its targeted customers can afford to pay, or an anti-anxiety drug that 300 million Americans need right now? Would you like the government to mandate that insurance policies cover it? The government’s answer is yes!

Are you an operator of drug and alcohol rehab facilities that would see a tremendous increase in business if only the government would mandate that insurance policies pay for your services? The government’s answer is yes!

Are you a medical facility that offers costly tests, screenings or preventive care that some people might not choose to buy with their own money? Would your bottom line be healthier if the government forced every insurance policy to pay for your services for every American every year? Yes!

These and other cheerful agreements made it into the Affordable Care Act’s list of 10 “essential health benefits:” emergency services, habilitative and rehabilitative services, inpatient care, outpatient care, maternity and newborn care, mental health and addiction treatment, lab tests, preventive care, prescriptions and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

Under the law, every insurance policy sold in the health insurance exchanges, and every individual or small group policy sold outside of the exchanges, must cover all 10 of the “essential health benefits.” Policies that didn’t were forcibly canceled.

Unpleasant but money-saving measures, like annual and lifetime limits on benefits, were abolished.

Premiums, deductibles and co-payments skyrocketed, along with tax expenditures to pay for subsidies.

Large-group plans, like the kind that more than 150 million Americans have through their employers, are not required to provide all the “essential health benefits,” but to the extent that they do, they’re subject to the same ban on cost-controlling benefit limits.

Everybody’s premiums went up.

Free health care isn’t free, and it isn’t free of consequences. The rising premiums drove many people to drop their health insurance or never buy it in the first place. Gradually the pool of insured people included more and more individuals with high medical expenses, and fewer and fewer people paying premiums but not making claims.

Everybody’s premiums went up again, and the problem got worse.

In a desperate effort to keep everyone in the pool, the Obama administration took away the option of buying low-cost health coverage. Individual and small group policies that didn’t provide the “essential health benefits” became illegal. Short-term policies that offered interim coverage with no frills were limited to three months. Association health plans, which allow businesses to get together and buy a large-group policy, were tightly restricted. “Health reimbursement arrangements,” accounts that employers fund for their employees’ medical expenses, could not be used to purchase insurance, because employers might pay out a lump sum instead of providing full coverage, and employees might prefer that.

What you prefer is not important to people who want to use the force of government to dictate your choices.

President Trump has now signed an executive order that calls for new federal rules expanding the availability of low-cost health insurance options. That’s a step in the right direction. The crushing cost of health insurance is making everybody sick.

Susan Shelley is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. Reach her at Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter: @Susan_Shelley