I am so hopping mad at the GOP right now I can barely tolerate it:
The Bush administration offered a new estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit on Tuesday, saying it would cost $720 billion in the next 10 years.
That is much more than the $400 billion Congress assumed when it passed legislation creating the benefit in late 2003.
But administration officials said the numbers were not comparable. The original estimate was for the years 2004 to 2013. The new estimate covers the period from 2006, when the drug benefit becomes available, to 2015.
The higher figure, which provides the first glimpse of the true cost of the drug benefit, could touch off a political uproar in Congress, where conservative Republicans were already expressing alarm about the costs of Medicare, including the drug benefit.
Fiscal conservatives would be holding impeachment hearings right now if there were any.
Bachbone
Anyone who took the time to look up Bush’s record as TX guv knew he was not “conservative.” His record as president only confirms that knowledge. He looks conservative only when compared with RINOs and Democrats.
Aaron
So let me get this straight:
Y0U ARE TRYING TO STOP GRANDMA FROM GETTING THE MEDICINE SHE NEEDS?
I think that’s why the GOP has to suck up on this one.
John Cole
Yes. Fuck Grandma and the rest of the entitlement generation. Oops. I mean greatest generation.
Kimmitt
Fiscal conservatives would be holding impeachment hearings right now if there were any.
What about the fact that the Administration clearly lied to Congress?
Terry
For what it’s worth, I saw Max Bacus, a Democrat, explain that the difference is due to the different 10 year time periods being measured. The smaller figure included the initial years in which the new program was very minimally in effect, whereas the larger figure, the $720 million amount, includes only the years for which the new program is fully effective. As he explained it, the program only really starts kicking in in 2006.
In other words, the comparison is one of apples and oranges. When you look at who wrote the story, Ceci Connelley and Mike Allen, it’s easy to see how it got all fucked up.
S.W. Anderson
John, you’ve got to see the big picture. Fiscal conservatism is all well and good, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of payback for open-handed Rangers, Pioneers and other big campaign contributors at Pfizer, Merck, Glaxo, etc.
It’s an anything-to-win thing.
Bob
That’s the wonder of that bill. Grandma didn’t get her medicine and the drugs companies got their big payoffs.
I’ll say it again. Bush is there to represent the very rich. The drug bill was to give money to the big drug companies in the guise of aiding the elderly. The tax cuts were to give money to the wealthy in the guise of, what, giving money to the wealthy in order to create jobs. The war in Iraq is for the corporate interests that profit from war and oil.
And what do the bully boys get? They get to be outraged. The next stage of fascism is to blame the mess on some other group. Who will it be this time? Jews? Blacks? Moslems? You can get out your 2 X 4s, but you won’t solve the problem until you figure out what’s happening. Most of you here will never get it.
George Saras
Bob, get youself to the nearest loony bin…don’t stop for lunch or even a snack…forget the stop at the restroom, just piss in your pants…the safety and wellbeing of the Free World depends on you getting the kind of medical care that you so obviously need. And if you’re real nice to them, maybe they’ll let you bunk with one of the bully boys so you can get your jollies.
Love ya, Babe.
TM Lutas
The big unknown is how much cheaper pills are going to substitute for expensive surgeries. The fact is that medical management is cheaper than surgical management of a great laundry list of conditions.
Let me provide an illustration. Grandma’s 72. She’s going to die of pneumonia in two years time. She also is a candidate for a quadruple bypass. If she had been taking her pills religiously since her doctor first identified the problem 6 years ago at age 66, she wouldn’t need the $100,000 operation and recovery process. The cost of the medication is $2500 per year. The government saves $80,000 by paying for her pills instead of paying for her surgery.
The cost of the program, in accordance to standard DC accounting practices, only measures gross spending and assigns a substitution effect of $0 in savings. This is absurd and the source of White House estimates of cost that were much lower than the DC consensus. The WH was doing some best guessing on the level of substitution and claiming that it was going to save money.
We’ll know the facts somewhere around 2008-2009 when there’s enough data in but everybody has known for a long time that the old system was absurd and that we were wasting tons of money via unnecessary surgeries because cheap drug therapies were not covered but expensive surgeries were.
If the mix isn’t right and we’re not getting enough substitution effects, the time to address it is in the 2008-2010 time frame and tweak the system to encourage further substitution.
Kimmitt
The WH was doing some best guessing on the level of substitution and claiming that it was going to save money.
Well, except for the parts where they threatened the accountants who noticed that the numbers were faulty with termination. That was different.
Bob
George Saras, after you wipe the drool off your chin, reread what you just wrote. Absolutely nothing about the Bush Administration lying to you and getting away with it again. You’re one of the fools who will never get it.
Ah, but stupidity is rewarded. Here’s your 2 x 4. Go find someone to blame and beat him up.
Bob
How about before fucking grandma and the entitlement generation (ah, where are the gas chambers when the elderly get in the way?), how about we just roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthiest?
I know it’ll be hard for them, but there’s only so many swimming pools, limos, etc. that the ultra-rich corporate elite can accumulate; and what with all the global warming a lot of the old vacation spots will soon be under water anyway.
Terry
I believe the other posters are right about “Bob.” He has got to be typing this crap from some institution where the custodians are very lax in their supervision of the mentally unstable.
pleasewakeupy'all
John,
While your outrage is understandable, what is not is why it is focused on this specific item and not on the duplicitous nature of this administration in general. The true cost of this benefit was clearly known, but those who tried to voice their concerns were characteristically threatened into silence. And of course, the conservative sheep sneered and snorted that reports of the administration’s duplicity were just more liberal-biased-media propaganda. This has been, and will continue to be the MO of this administration. Secrecy, forced loyalty, and dishonesty are the binding agents for everything this administration does, whether it’s dealing with domestic energy policy, Iraq involvement, or Medicare and Social Security.
Idealogical leanings notwithstanding, how anyone is OK with this administration’s un-American-to-the-core methods is beyond me.
Aaron
Again, it doesn’t matter what conservatives, libs, or libertarians think….Old people vote more than young, and there are a lot of them coming onto market.
And, yes, while I support markets, etc., when it comes to medicine, I humbly think most people do not want those decision based on market prices.
(Even though they will have to be: people can be damn stubborn.)
Bush winged through some cock and bull plan that pleased no one.
Oh well. I guess Hillary can clean it up when she nationalizes the whole system.
But seriously, of all products and markets, health care is the most sensitive.
shark
gee, what a shock. NOT. Everyone knew this “benefit” cost would bloat up like a caracss left in the sun.
Along with border security, this is going to be a deserved black eye for Bush
TM Lutas
Kimmitt – If you have a competing model that takes into account substitution of services and you tell your accountant to use that model, there’s a reasonable expectation that he’s going to do it or resign. If an accountant that I hired insisted on using static modeling when I specified dynamic modeling I’d threaten him with firing too.
I’ve yet to hear any of the deficit hawks critical of the Medicare prescription benefit give any sort of data or projections of how much substitution there will be. If you don’t account for substitution, all you’re talking about is gross costs in a situation where there are both costs and benefits. That’s fundamentally unfair and intellectually dishonest.
Kimmitt
Er, the point is that the Administration lowballed the figure initially, then admitted after the bill was passed that it would cost $100 billion extra. This isn’t about competing models of usage; it’s about just kinda lying.
TJ Jackson
Anyone who believes a government estimate of costs must also be interested in some real estate I own near Thule Greenland.
I also love the entertainment value Kimmit provides when he gasps in disbelieve at the thought that Bush might lie about the cost of Medicare. Its entertaining when you remember what Clinton told us total government health crae would cost and all the Dems jsu nodded up and down and we now find them whinning. Perhaps Kimmit would like to propose that any politician that lies about the cost of a social welfare program be forbidden from ever running for Federal office again?
Or better yet, immediately be forced on a date with Barbara Boxer.
Bob
Terry, what’s crazy? The concept of rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in order that people have roofs over their heads, food in their stomachs and medical care?
Or that I say BushCo is doing what it is doing in order to give more to the rich and take away from the rest of us?
It’s such a strange concept, fair wages, economic justice, hell, I’d settle for a little justice these days. Oh man, it’s so crazy to the bully boys. Hey, you guys must not be yelling loud enough.
Crazy, man, crazy.
CadillaqJaq
Bob constantly rants about “the concept of rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans…” the lack of which he intimates is keeping roofs from people’s heads and food from their stomachs. Whoa!
Is there a fiscal genius amongst us that has any numbers, in dollars annually, that would represent the increased revenue gained by increasing the taxes on the “wealthiest of the wealthiest?” How about it Bob, how much would it fatten the federal coffers, OR, is this just another ongoing dead-horse issue for you?
I’m making a wild guess here, but if one were to confiscate all of the money of all of the wealthiest, it might last a few days in the big picture of today’s federal spending.
Bob
Caddie,
I’ve seen estimates of 120 to 140 billion a year if those tax cuts for the wealthy were rolled back. Bush’s proposed budget cuts are around 60 billion, though he tends to underestimate the pain that he’s intending to inflict on the poor and middle class.
And, yes, it is class warfare. And guess what side Bush is representing and guess what side you are on.
train tickets
travel carnival cruise travel sites travel hotels cruise chicago hotels travel world series tickets alaska cruise travel cheap hotels new york hotels tickets hotel california travel channel travel airline travel airline ticket travel alaska cruise travel air tickets travel tickets travel hilton hotel travel caribbean cruises airline tickets disney world tickets new york city hotels travel nfl tickets travel celebrity cruises hotels travel carnival cruise line travel air tickets travel cruise ships travel cheap cruises best western hotels travel football tickets travel cruise discount airline tickets travel cruises princess cruise lines travel cheap airline tickets travel travel travel movie tickets princess cruise lines travel cheap plane tickets football tickets travel airline cheap tickets cruise ships travel hilton hotel travel cruise reviews nfl tickets travel las vegas hotels cruise reviews travel penn state football tickets travel cruise hotels cheap hotels travel cheap plane tickets travel nfl tickets travel directions new orleans hotels hotel discounts travel discount airline tickets travel travel agents atlantic city hotels travel nascar tickets travel cruise ships travel plane tickets tickets norwegian cruise lines travel orlando hotels travel travel packages carnival cruises travel cheap travel new orleans hotels travel sheraton hotels celebrity cruises hotel reservations carnival cruises cheap ticket travel agents choice hotels travel nursing cruises celebrity cruises travel nurse travel marriott hotels concert tickets