Medical professionals say the fundamental problem in the nation’s health-care system is the widespread misuse and overuse of tests, treatments and drugs that drive up prices, have little value to patients, and can pose serious risks. The question, they say, is not whether there will be rationing, but rather what will be rationed, and when and how.

To begin with, just out of curiousity, who is Ceci Connolly and what qualifies he/she to pontificate on health care? May I see some credentials, please? Or perhaps a birth certificate? Is Ceci even an American name? Is this journalism or idle time gossip?

Secondly, this story an as old as a 60 Minutes program on the subject from two years ago. We have  heard this old saw 1,000 times before, and it has not changed, one iota. And there is no substantive discussion in the article about either single-payer or the public option or how much money Max Baucus has in his pocket from insurance companies.  The WaPo is making damn certain that we stay as wholly unfocused as possible. Journalism should help us define what is wrong in such a way that a corrective can be envisioned. This article merely reheats already overcooked leftovers. It is a half-eaten Big Mac, retrieved from a dumpster. This makes this newspaper (I use the term loosely)the Washington Posthumous, publishing obits instead of birth announcements.

Both stories provide unspectacular reporting about unspectacular non-news. They are misleading and erroneously fanciful and take up space, while wasting energy. And while so many bemoan the death of the newspaper media, and Obama speaks lately (and glibly)of bailing out the industry, the WaPo is not doing much to further its’ cause when it publishes tripe like this.  Maybe we should put an earmark in the defense bill for that bailout.  A story about that would surely make the front page..on Saturday.