When is a free market not free?

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly posts an interesting piece on how the Medicare drug bill ended up leading to private insurance companies being paid (read: bribed) by the government to offer Medicare Advantage coverage, because it just didn't look very attractive to them. The end result: lesser care at a higher cost.

Just another example of conservative philosophy at work: let the market prevail, unless the market doesn't favor our buddies, then we rig the thing to make them happy.