Kevin Drum, commenting on a New York Times story about a Medicare program that pays private insurers more per patient than they pay directly to doctors: Private insurance carriers charge more than Medicare to provide medical services because, duh, they're a middleman and they have to make a profit. But private carriers, by movement conservative definition, must be better than any government program, so we have to find a way to get them involved. How? By paying them 19% more! So they can provide poorer service! And rip off vulnerable elderly patients (read the story for details)! And deplete the Medicare trust fund even faster than before! Read the whole New York Times story here.