Matthew Yglesias: Sens. Kyl, McConnell, and Roberts Want to Preserve the Waste in Public Sector Health Care. Their method for doing this is to sponsor a bill to prohibit Medicare and Medicaid from using research on what works and doesn't work as a means of spending their tax dollars more efficiently. The big point is not only that government spending is wasteful but that the Republicans are determined to keep it that way. Otherwise they'd just have to make up shit to sandbag any efforts to provide better and more democratic health care. (Of course, they do that too.) This is reminiscent of the plank in Big Pharma's Medicare drug bill that prohibits the government from using volume purchases to reduce costs -- something which every private sector insurance company does.

Paul Krugman noticed this story too. He called his post Taking the Hypocritical Oath. He refers to a longer piece on this from The Wonk Room, which among other things points out that Kyl has raised $1,971,968 from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to sponsor his Senate career. They evidently haven't toted up the numbers for McConnell and Roberts yet, but they're likely substantial. In any case, they have been bought so many times before -- Roberts is pretty much Mr. Agribusiness on the Hill -- that they wouldn't have any qualms about getting in this line.