Medicare drug benefit


Lots of promises and escalating costs
Tammy Bruce writes on the Medicare drug benefit.

One of the primary (but certainly not singular) problems with this socialized medical policy is cost. President Bush, when he first announced his plan, said in his 2003 State of the Union address that it would cost $400 billion over 10 years, and was the amount still understood when Congress barely passed the bill. That amount alone is enough to knock your socks off, but then the price tag began to rise even higher. After Bush signed the bill, the White House announced it would actually cost closer to $534 billion. Now justa few months ago, the White House announced it will in fact cost more than $1.2 trillion dollars over just the first 10 years.

Would we have accepted this plan in 2003 if we were told of the obscene cost? Would the AARP have been able to justify to even their own members the sacrificing of the economic future of this nation for their grandchildren, just so they could get free or less expensive drugs? Would Congress have voted to pass it? I think not. Where this money is coming from no one knows, but ultimately the question is, when did we accept the notion that taking care of the elderly is government's business in the first place?

There is a sad reminder of what happens when a society abandons all responsibility to the government, especially responsibility to family members. Americans were appalled when a simple heat wave cost the lives of over 15,000 people in France, mostly the elderly. We could not conceive of how and why so many seniors didn't get the help they needed. What we eventually realized, of course, is that the elderly in socialist countries like France are essentially wards of the state, and when families begin to look at government at the paid-for nanny (via tax dollars), seniors are abandoned. You see, the heat wave hit in August when the French go on vacation. So does the government. Families didn't come to rescue or care for the elderly because they assumed the government would be doing it for them. And the French government? They didn't have the money, resources or even medical personnel (because of the famous French vacations and 35 hour work week insisted on by the Socialists) to cope with it properly. So, viola! 15,000 seniors perished.

A elegant way of stating Somebody Else's Problem.

If government promises and doesn't deliver, where does that leave the people depending on those promises?

And where does that leave the people footing the bills?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - October 1, 2005 at 05:48 PM  Tag


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