To those who’ve been asking, I am aware that Peter Wehner has responded at Contentions to my column last weekend on Medicare. I will have more to say about Pete’s post, probably in my weekend column because I don’t think I can get to it before then. But I do want to clarify one matter.

Pete opens by observing that I criticized his EPPC colleague James C. Capretta. That is true, but it is not exactly accurate. I am a major Jim Capretta fan, and I have learned a great deal from him about the politics and economics of health care. Jim wrote a lengthy cover essay essay for the May 2 issue of the mag, entitled “Paul Ryan’s Medicare Fix.” It is fabulous, and I agree with about 95 percent of it. I took issue with a single point, albeit an important one, namely, Jim’s endorsement of Congressman Ryan’s position that government should play what Jim calls “an important oversight role” in a reformed health-care system in which Medicare is preserved.

It is not my intention to belabor the arguments I made on this point. I merely want to point out that, in the column, I called Jim Rep. Ryan’s “ablest defender,” and observed that his essay “expertly” described the fee-for-service structure that is one of Medicare’s chief flaws. I think very highly of his work. It’s perfectly fair for Pete to emphasize the point on which I disagreed with Jim, but I am not a Capretta critic. I am a Capretta admirer.