What you don't understand and I'm afraid will never understand is that it's about the principle of starting a new welfare "entitlement" when our taxes are already sky-high and the current budget slips ever more into red-ink. Let's not even talk about SS's insolvency and that multi-trillion dollar nation debt.
Now just what do you think will happen to a prescription drug plan that starts out “small” with "high thresholds" in subsequent election cycles when the democrats continually propose, no DEMAND decreasing those thresholds and increasing the outlays for the program? I mean Come On Tex, what will the republicans do when the democrats charge republicans with killing Granny because they are too cheap and greedy to give Granny whatever she wants in FREE prescription drugs. You should know by now.