Henry Aaron of Brookings on Abelson and Harris of the New York Times: "Rarely Have I Begun an Article with Such High Hopes That The Public Would Be Educated on a Difficult Subject and Ended With Such a Feeling of Complete Let-Down..."

Henry Aaron:

Rarely have I begun an article with such high hopes that the public would be educated on a difficult subject and ended with such a feeling of complete let-down. It isn't that the Times authors of the critique of Dartmouth were wrong. It is that they said so little with so many words. The Dartmouth research, showing huge variation in the use of various medical procedures and large variations in per patient spending under Medicare, has been a revelation and a useful one....