Progressives implementing Obamacare and nudging the U.S. towards single payer care are putting their reckless programs into high gear. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) headed by Dr. Don Berwick, formerly of the far left Institute of Medicine, has changed the bidding process for medical device companies causing them to eventually produce lower cost inferior products, or go out of business completely.

The people running the program at CMS probably hope they will emerge looking like geniuses who saved taxpayers billions, while the home care industry will get the blame as quality falls, shortages develop, deliveries become irregular, innovation ceases, and more people end up in hospitals. 

The Weekly Standard report explains why Americans who need basic health care will fast become big losers while the Obama regime pushes us towards a single payer system.

"Neither I nor anyone else have ever seen any bidding process anywhere that works this way," says University of Maryland professor Peter Cramton, an economist who has closely followed the Medicare bidding process. And nearly 250 university and industry economists who study market-design economics have signed Cramton-drafted letters to the president and CMS expressing grave concerns about the process and suggesting that it be halted until its flaws can be worked out.

[snip]

...since nearly everything is kept secret, CMS's own officials are free to manipulate contracts however they want. The result is a disaster waiting to happen for the market as a whole. 

[snip]

Cramton adds an important note. "It's rare to see something like this happening in the absence of an organized interest group on the other side," he told me. "Usually somebody benefits from the flaws in a process. Here, no special interest group benefits." Unless, of course, one believes the CMS's own leadership ought to be counted as another special interest group with an agenda all its own.

When the federal government becomes its own special interest group, say goodbye to transparent bidding in a free market and hello to socialized medicine.

Read more Ann Kane at Potter Williams Report