David Broder: Putting Teeth into Medicare Reform
WASHINGTON — Americans are familiar with — if not altogether comfortable about — unelected officials exercising great authority over our lives. The nine justices on the Supreme Court and hundreds of other jurists exert their power from the bench. The economy is managed by the Federal Reserve Board, though no one ever forced Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke to campaign for a vote.
If President Obama has his way, another such unelected authority will be created — a manager and monitor for the vast and expensive American health care system. As part of his health reform effort, he is seeking to launch the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, or IMAC, a bland title for a body that could become as much an arbiter of medicine as the Fed is of the economy or the Supreme Court of the law.
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