The roiling debate over health care this summer has included a host of accusations from opponents of the plan that have been so specious that many in the mainstream news media have flatly labeled them false.

Far from embracing the attacks, many leading conservative health care policy experts said in recent interviews that the dynamic was precluding a more robust real-world debate while making it nearly impossible for them to inject their studied, free-market solutions into the discussions.

I spent about five minutes trying to figure out why we would need “free market solutions” to fix what is already a free market. Then I finished reading the Times article, and realized that the answer wasn’t in there either. The whole thing boils down to what passes for conservative policy wonks complaining that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are making them look bad.