And it actually has more to do with their mothers political tutelage than Marks lobbyist-cum-FDA chief role in DC or his brothers as Bushs mouthpiece. On this issue though, the way Mark McClellan nurtured industry interests as head of the FDA and later Medicare make him persona non grata with me when it comes to either lowering the cost or improving the effectiveness of healthcare. The article linked below, which I got from a link in his Wikipedia entry, partly illustrates why. Having taken with one hand, however, I'll give, at least somewhat, with the other.

I do appreciate the new link to the Atlantic article because, after some long overdue sleep tonight, this will be my first real chance to finish it, and from the first couple pages it did seem to present a non-partisan, unconventional and PRACTICAL analysis of what's wrong with our healthcare system at its foundation. Fee for services and outright obstacles to informed patient decisions were the two big things that leaped out at me, but I've no doubt there's more. Healthcare costs are rising everywhere, but the RATE of their increase in the States is out of all proportion to that in any other industrialized state. Until we address that directly finding new ways to pay the mushrooming bill is treating the symptom rather than the disease. Sadly, I don't think "regulators" like McClellan whose solution to high US drug costs is to cudgel other countries into accepting the same costs will provide the answers.

That's too bad, because any system so deeply flawed that it has David Brooks arguing Barack Obama is insufficiently radical and interventionist must be badly flawed indeed....