Something's Happening Here

What it is, ain't exactly clear. Knight-Ridder (06.15.05):

"President Bush will kick off an effort Thursday to help senior citizens sign up for Medicare's new prescription-drug coverage. With his plans for overhauling Social Security in trouble, the president's shift in focus gives him a chance to celebrate a legislative victory from 2003 that's intended to improve life for seniors. But critics say the new drug plan may be a costly disappointment." Bush to meet with senior citizens to promote Medicare drug benefit

"Polls indicate that most senior citizens don't know what to think about the new drug benefit. The plan will pay 75 percent of prescription-drug costs for the average middle-class retiree, in return for a $250 annual deductible and a monthly premium of about $37. Low-income retirees will get more generous coverage." "An April poll sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 45 percent of seniors knew virtually nothing about the drug benefit. About a third who said they knew about it had an unfavorable impression." A lot of folks with modest means will find out they probably won't qualify. Not only will it be very confusing, it will be very expensive. It started out with Bush telling Congress the new drug benefit would only cost $400 billion over 10 years. Ahhh, but then!! "Medicare's chief actuary thought the cost would be much higher, but his boss threatened to fire him if he told Congress. Within weeks of enactment, the measure's official cost projection skyrocketed; the latest estimate puts the 10-year price at more than $723 billion." Sounds like BigPharm will do OK though. If that wasn't squiffy enough, "the new benefit was tacked on to Medicare, an entitlement program whose costs already have grown far beyond expectations." "'This was an exercise in fiscal madness from the very beginning,' said Robert Moffit, a health-care specialist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center in Washington. "They designed something that is so fiscally irresponsible it's absolutely stunning." So while Bush has been pushing his Social Security plan ad nauseam, this little hummer's been waiting in the wings. Bush argues that "Social Security faces a $3.7 trillion funding shortfall over the next 75 years unless Congress makes major changes in the retirement program." Assuming for the moment his claim is not unadulterated nonsense, bear in mind that the shortfall for Medicare "over the same period is projected to be nearly eight times that amount: $27.8 trillion." Knight-Ridder (01.20.05):

"The Medicare trust fund, which pays inpatient hospital costs and short-term nursing-home stays for the program's nearly 42 million seniors, is slated to become insolvent in 2019, more than 20 years before both of Social Security's insolvency date estimates." Medicare, Medicaid in dire financial situations

Get out them checkbooks! Things are gonna get a little nutty.