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I appreciate your position.

Do you REALLY believe in your heart that the federal government will ever reduce the amount spent on MEDICARE?

I don't. Now not only will medicare spending continue to increase every year, the entitlement has been augmented.

All of those items you mentioned are terrific, could they have been done without adding a bunch more spending?

I suspect that it's very possible.

My apologies for swiping your screen name but,

That's my 2 cents......

Well, I appreciate your position, too, Guy.

Do I really believe the feds will reduce Medicare spending? Realistically, no. But it has to be recognized that this bill wasn't just a new spending initiative, but the first substantive attempt since Medicare was established to institute cost-containment elements to the program, and to institute practices which the private sector uses to hold down costs. If these elements take hold as planned, they will reduce the cost of Medicare. That's a big "if," but the Republican Congress and the President are making a serious effort.

Actually, this bill wasn't the first attempt to put cost-controls into Medicare. That attempt was in 1997 with amendments to the budget act which established the original "Medicare+Choice" program. But as I pointed out, the Clinton Administration was so committed to keeping seniors tied to the federal government for their health needs, that it eviscerated the private health plan component of the '97 Medicare reforms. This bill reestablishes and strengthens those reforms.

So herein is a major difference between the two parties: With the Democrats you will get nothing but further enslavement to federal entitlements. With the Republicans you get real reforms intended to enable people to break free of those entitlements. Will the reforms work? Time will tell, but the effort is being made.

I should also point out something I found which I didn't include in the post: While the drug benefit may cost (emphasis on "may" because as I suggest, what we're hearing now may be an estimate on the high side) $500 billion over the next decade, the things the Senate Democrats wanted to put into the bill would have cost $2 trillion over the same period of time. And if they had their way, they would have obligated taxpayers to a $2 trillion price tag, and wouldn't have made the attempts at cost-containment which the Republicans placed into the bill.....Everyone needs to remember this when they go to the voting booth and are tempted to "send a message" by voting for some insured loser rather than voting for the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

**All of those items you mentioned are terrific, could they have been done without adding a bunch more spending?**

Nope. Clearly you're one of those people, however, who likes to sit back and say that if we don't spend money on anything, the country will be better off. Sometimes money has to be spent. I think this is something very important and does require money to be spent.