A little night reading by Waxman.

Henry Waxman did the Democratic respons to the Presiden't weekly radio address this morning, and he just layed into the new medicare drug benefit. (can't find the source link, so I'm gonna link to the text over at First Draft.) I know I've been going on about this, but this is fearless. More of this, please.

But 40 years ago, seniors experienced none of the chaos that they are experiencing today. What went wrong this time that went right 40 years ago? A large part of the problem is the legislation that the Republican Congress passed in 2003. Instead of using Medicare, which seniors and persons with disabilities have relied on for years, the program was turned over to hundreds of private insurers who can charge what they want, cover what drugs they want, and change what they cover at will.

Instead of the certainty of Medicare coverage, seniors are now faced with a confusing array of choices, inaccurate information, and sometimes even higher costs. They are even threatened with penalties if they don't sign up at all.

And instead of Medicare negotiating low drug prices for our seniors, insurance companies are making their own secret deals with drug companies.

Why did this happen? I've been in Congress for over 30 years, and I have never seen a more dishonest legislative process than the one used to pass the Medicare prescription drug bill. Negotiations were behind closed doors. Lobbyists knew more about what was happening than most Members of Congress did. Key estimates about the bill's cost were illegally withheld from Democrats. And both the Administration's point man on the legislation and one of the lead Republican authors in Congress were negotiating - at the same time - high-paying jobs representing the pharmaceutical industry.