As mentioned in the last post, the Senate dramatically weakened the Independent Medicare Advisory Board in the health care legislation currently being debated.

Today, Concord released an issue brief discussing this and highlighting the fact that there is an amendment being proposed by Senator Rockefeller that would restore the board's potential for cost control and delivery system reform. 

The legislative process right now is quite a jumble and it is unknown whether any amendments still have a chance to be voted on or folded into the final "manager's amendment." Hopefully, Senators concerned about cost control will see the wisdom in still altering the bill to strengthen its provisions on that score. Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post had a good column about this in the paper yesterday.