'Howard Dean Sells Out'

This was in today's links, but it's worth highlighting:

Howard Dean Sells Out: Monday Health Care Lobbyist Smackdown Weblogging, by Brad DeLong: The government already sets rates for Medicare, through the RVS and the RUC process.

The Independent Payment Advisory Board--IPAB--is an attempt to set rates in a less-stupid and more evidence-based way.

Thus Howard Dean claiming that "the ACA's rate-setting won't work", thereby telling his readers that the creation of IPAB introduces rate-setting into some equilibrium of free-market prices for Medicare, is Howard Dean being mendacious to try to protect the profits of the clients of McKenna, Long, & Aldridge. It is not Howard Dean weighing in on public policy trying to make America a better place.

Shame on Howard Dean. Disgraceful. ...