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Hey, I know you are concentrating on the positives. That is a grand policy and something we should all try to do.

What we must strive for, in my opinion, is avoidance of the left's faulty belief that good intentions are just as worthwhile as real results.

If the left wingers had gotten their way, the new entitlement would have cost an additional 2 trillion over ten years, instead we have a new entitlement that costs only $500 billion.

Even you, whom I believe to be genuine and sincere, cannot bet the farm on this law's "reforms" reducing the neverending annual expansion of medicare.

"Do I really believe the feds will reduce Medicare spending? Realistically, no."

I wish this new law started reducing the medicare expense every year and completely got the government out of the business, I really do, I'd even meet you somewhere, let you scream "I TOLD YOU SO" in may face, and kick my ass.

But none of that is going to happen.

No, I wouldn't bet the farm on the eventual success of the reforms, but the reforms are well-intended and based upon the experience of similar reforms in the private market, they are proven cost-savers. We'll see. I think it was worth the effort, even the drug benefit, because, as has been pointed out, there are drugs which control symptoms and even treatment at a much lower cost than surgery or hospital-based alternative treatments. We shell-out $500 billion over the next ten years in prescription drugs, it could result in an actual savings of a trillion or so dollars in unnecessary hospitalizations, which the old Medicare system would have necessitated.

I should also point out that Congressional Republicans are committed to further reforms of Medicare. While they supported the cost-containment measures in this bill, they believe that more cost-containment measures are needed. If the Dems take back one of the houses of Congress, and/or the Presidency, these further cost-control methods will never see the light of day. The Medicare bill was a step in modernizing and reigning-in the cost of the program. More needs to be done, as you suggest. And the first step in achieving these further goals is to re-elect Pres. Bush, and to put more Republicans in Congress this year.