On Deliberative Democracy: Citizens Panels and Medicare Reform

On Deliberative Democracy: Citizens Panels and Medicare Reform

By offering three alternative proposals on Social Security, the report of the presidential advisory commission last January performed an unintended service to the country. It did exactly what commissions appointed to provide advice on complex policy questions ought to do. As a result of divisions of opinion within the commission, its members offered not one but three possible solutions, with a different assessment of the prospective advantages and disadvantages of each.

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