Posted on 11/17/2003 10:32:19 AM PST by snopercod
Medicare: Congress is close to a deal on a bill that will provide a prescription drug benefit. The last thing the country needs is another federal entitlement.
But Washington is determined to create one, so there's little chance the freight train will be stopped.
House and Senate negotiators report that about 95% of the bill has been finished and agreed on. The tangle of legislation they've spun will add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare — a costly provision that is unfortunately not being questioned.
And it will force the program to face more free-market competition — possibly the best part of the plan, and the one that's hanging up completion of the bill.
It's funny that, at a time of growing concern over soaring government spending and rising deficits, both parties seem ready to embrace a new entitlement that will make spending and deficits even bigger. But they can't seem to agree on letting a bit of competition for Medicare keep its costs from exploding later on.
Predictably, Democrats who see the world as Sen. Ted Kennedy does don't like the idea. It doesn't square with their goal of eventually forcing the nation into a government-run health care system.
A few Republicans are also against the provision, but for a different reason: They don't believe it's enough to save Medicare from the crushing liability it will incur when the baby boom generation retires and begins to rely on the program.
We wish there was as much opposition to a drug entitlement.
While providing medicine to the elderly seems honorable and affordable, it is in fact neither. It's not honorable because the burden of paying for the prescription drug program for the elderly will fall on the working young, whose relative small numbers will buckle under the weight of the burgeoning retiree class.
It's not affordable because its costs will surely exceed the House's July projection of $425 billion over 10 years. Consider that Medicare began in 1965 with estimates it would cost a mere $9 billion by 1990. It actually cost $67 billion.
Even worse, the Medicare special hospital subsidy established in 1987 was supposed to cost just $100 million in 1992, a pittance. Five years later, the actual cost hit $11 billion.
Also consider that Kennedy regards the prescription drug benefit as a "down payment." No way he and others who want nationalized health care will be happy with just $425 billion.
They'll agitate for more and get it — unless someone with clout in Washington wakes up before it's too late, which it will be soon if lawmakers are as impatient to get it passed as they appear to be.
Preoccupied with weightier issues, such as the return of Rush and the coronation of R-nold. ;O)
Only the ultra-"whacko" fringe conservatives on the Hill are taking a Constitutional stand, while mere "right-wing conservatives" such as Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Finance Cmte. chair are pushing it through to completion. That's sad. The end is surely near.
Here's some right here.
ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE SOCIALISM!
End the income tax and end socialism. FInd out how changing the method of tax collection can change the way government spends. Spend four minutes looking at HR 25/SB 1493 - a national retail sales tax FAQ
The factor that isn't mentioned is that it probably won't even lower drug costs. What happens whenever there's an entitlement to help with costs, whether it's education, medicine, housing, or anything you can think of? Well, the price goes up, because people are used to paying what they paid, and they'll be less likely to question cost or the need for drugs.
At a time when there was tremendous pressure on the pharmaceutical companies to be more reasonable with prices, and business going to Canada for lower costs (funny, isn't it...globalism doesn't happen when it cuts into corporate markups?), the government is going to ease that pressure with this subsidy.
The other thing it does is to make natural medications less desirable. There isn't any subsidy on them, very few doctors recommend them, they're under constant pressure for "saftety", and they're much cheaper that pharmaceuticals. I just hope the government keeps out of the herbal and vitamin supplement industry. Consumers are better off without the "help" it would bring.
Sen. Edwards (D-NC) opposes the bill because it doesn't go far enough toward full socialized medicine.
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