Medicare's Poison Pill

Part D offers a disturbing window on the future of health care. For conservatives, it represents the sharp end of the stake they hope to drive into Medicare at large, destroying the largest and best single-payer health care program this nation has ever known. For progressives, it demonstrates the vast shortcomings of any health program—no matter how "universal"—that fails to defy Big Pharma and the insurance companies. For myself, perhaps the key lesson from dealing with Part D has been that the new plan doesn't have that much to do with ensuring drug access for seniors, but a great deal with securing the vested interests of the stakeholders—from the Bush administration and the pharma industry, all the way to groups like AARP.