Any comments on the fact that Bush and Co. pulled a bait and switch on the Medicare Drug policy ? It is going to cost twice as much as Congress was told before passing it--Typical Bush behavior --grrrr![]()





Any comments on the fact that Bush and Co. pulled a bait and switch on the Medicare Drug policy ? It is going to cost twice as much as Congress was told before passing it--Typical Bush behavior --grrrr![]()
I'm sure it is pretty hard to predict these costs... part of the law of unintended consequences.
Naturally the cost of this benefit is bound to be enormous. Of course Medicare wastes
billions every year. But if you're going to have government medicare, it is only right that
you have a drug benefit to go along with it. Where they really erred is by not allowing
Medicare to negotiate group deals for medicines to get everyone a price break (buying
in bulk). I'm sure the drug companies lobbied heavily against that. If the costs have
proven too high then that definitely ought to be revisited by the new Congress.
The Clinton healthcare plan would have been much more expensive. A much simplier
reform (with no additional bureaucracy) would have been to just lower the medical
deduction threshold form 7.5% AGI down to 2% or 0% on the 1040 Schedule A.
Immediate relief for every tax payer... seniors and non-seniors alike. Of course,
in the statist view that would have 'cost' the government too much money (by allowing
people to keep more of their own).
I see what this is about now...
Another Washington Post retraction coming? We'll see.
WHITE HOUSE BLASTS WASHINGTON POST -- AGAIN
Wed Feb 09 2005 17:25:59 ET
For the second time in less than a week, the White House has issued a rare public demand for The WASHINGTON POST to correct high impact stories about the cost of President Bush's domestic initiatives.
The POST caved last Thursday after the White House savaged reporter Jonathan Weisman's article on Social Security (“Benefit Cuts Would Offset Contributions”). Not only did the POST run a correction, but Weisman wrote an entire story correcting his earlier account.
The bad blood boiled over again today when the POST led its editions with a story about Medicare costs by Ceci Connolly and Mike Allen (“Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion”).
The White House issued a scathing attack on the story, coupled with a demand for a fresh correction. A second correction would be a major journalistic embarrassment for the POST, which the White House argues is providing ammunition to Democrats for use in baseless attacks against the president.
The WASHINGTON POST, however, stands by its story this time.
"We're satisfied that our story is quite accurate and don't see any need for a correction," said an editor.
The WP's grotesque political agenda aside (it's editorial bias being another animal altogether), GWB's plan to expand entitlement programs--including corporate giveaways like the Farm Bill of 2002--was a complete revisitation of the Great Society plans that LBJ put forth. Nothing good comes from entitlement expansion because you're relying on projections and demographic trends to make said expansions viable and economically feasible. These are rarely accurate, particularly when it comes to tax receipts beyond the current fiscal year.
People who call GWB conservative clearly have no concept of the term.
Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
William F. Buckley, Jr.





True. REAL conservatives consider GWB to be as fiscally liberal as LBJ ! However, I suspect that this is part of a grand plan for GWB's republicans to "steal" the engine of carrying majority votes, i.e. entitlement programs, away from democrats in the short term.People who call GWB conservative clearly have no concept of the term
In the long run, however, the money being spent by GWB's republicans for things like the prescription drug benefit program will be more than offset by cost savings on such things as environmental compliance, clean energy costs, union wages and benefits, welfare costs etc. as GWB is able to appoint conservative judges who can eventually unravel the mountain of regulations that liberal judges have created/allowed to be piled up over the past 40 years.
I have to agree that I've been very disappointed by the way both GWB and the republicans who control congress have continued all this pork barrell spending. But what was I thinking, they are politicans after all.
Dancing is wonderful training for girls, it's the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it. ~Christopher Morley, Kitty Foyle
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