The Senate came up with a Medicare Bill which, while not perfect, gained bipartisan
support and was at least a step towards extending Medicare by adding a drug
benefit for seniors.
House Republicans, guided by the Bush adminstration, have come up with a version
that will end universal Medicare, and pass control over to Big Pharma and
insurers (along with $12 billion in taxpayers subsidies, for starters).
It's a bad bill. It's so bad that a tide of opposition is rising from all
areas of the political spectrum, opposed by Republicans and Democrats, conservatives
and liberals. It's a bad
idea for a lot of reasons.
I have great respect for my friend and former colleague Newt Gingrich.
But on the Medicare prescription drug legislation currently pending in
Congress, he is dead wrong. The deal on prescription drugs struck this
week is in fact bad news for senior citizens and possibly even worse political
news for the Republican Party.
The original proposal of the Bush administration, and many of the ideas
pushed by Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, provided policy answers
to the right questions regarding seniors' health care and prescription
drugs. By and large these reforms
have been stripped out of the final bill. What is left is simply new
spending that is sure to restrict the options available to seniors
in the future.
In fact, this bill is going to cost millions of seniors
their current prescription drug coverage.
This bill will add at least
$400 billion in deficits over the coming decade. Worse, AARP and others
have made it quite clear that they
see this bill
as just the opening gambit. They will be back, year after year,
petitioning Congress to massively expand this already oversized new entitlement.
Hillary Clinton's wish for ever-increasing government control
over
the American
health care system will come true.
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