In two separate stories by three reporters published on two consecutive days, the Washington Post danced around a groundbreaking angle -- indeed, the important angle -- on the current Medicare Part D hubbub occupying Congress.
While Democrats were passing a "minor alteration" to the plan on Friday, that day's edition of the Post carried a front-page story about how the pharmaceutical lobby scared the new House leadership away from an apparently more-potent bill to reform the controversially weak prescription-drug assistance package. Unfortunately, the Post didn't discuss any details of that alternative, perhaps worried the public might get ideas from it and push for legislation that would heap less profits on its sponsors.
On Saturday, the Post ran a story announcing the reform had passed and, some distance down the page, quoting sources who pointed out the changes would likely have little potency, for economic reasons. Republicans are noting that the laws of market economics constrict the new "bargaining powers" forced on the Department of Health and Human Services under the Dems' new plan. But the sourcing is terrible, more of a he-said, she-said review by interested partisans than anything a lay reader might find valuable in trying to determine who is right.
It's kind of amazing that, with the bulk of an excellent (if a bit complex) story apparently at its fingertips, the Post seems it would rather let the tale fade away than stir up any public-interest dust that would make the Dems and the GOP look bad all at once while maybe, just maybe, revealing there are better ways to wrestle with skyrocketing drug prices.