THE MEDICARE DRUG BILL: An Impending Disaster For All Americans

The Heritage Foundation ^ | June 13, 2003 | by Stuart M. Butler, Ph.D.

[Uncle Bill]

* The Medicare program is riddled with fraud. In July 1997, federal auditors estimated that $23 billion was wasted by Medicare because of fraud or mistakes -- or one dollar out of every seven spent.

"Why should we waste another dollar on a program that's already losing $43,750 a minute in fraud?" asked Dasbach."
Source

[Uncle Bill]

[DPB101]

Some things cannot be fixed. This was destined when medical care was tied to employment in WWII and not considered income by the IRS.

The great flaw in our system is, by and large, the American people do get what they want. You know, I know and the writer of this article knows what will happen. I suspect even those for this bill know. But the ball is rolling down hill and there is no way to stop it.

Btw...I am not this negative toward the future in general. I believe we are entering an era when much of the New Deal will be rolled back.

Medical care just won't be part of it.

[Uncle Bill]

SOURCE:

Al Gore’s Prescription For Medicare: Cutting Funding While Opposing Bipartisan Reform

AUSTIN, TX - Instead of explaining why the Clinton-Gore Administration has opposed bipartisan Medicare reform and proposed cuts in Medicare funding, Al Gore today again changed his position on a major issue in this campaign.

"Governor Bush supports providing prescription drug coverage to America’s seniors, but Al Gore’s charts and graphs can’t hide the fact that the Clinton-Gore administration opposed bipartisan Medicare reform and they submitted a budget to cut Medicare spending by $70 billion," said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett.

[Uncle Bill]

"I believe we are entering an era when much of the New Deal will be rolled back."

Me too, right after the collapse.

[DPB101]

Look on the bright side. The way things are going, Social Security, Medicine and the military are the only things the Feds will be able to be involved in. There won't even be enough money for those three.

[Uncle Bill]

Prescription Plan is Likely Step Toward Revival of Clinton Care
"The proposal is a gargantuan overreach since more than two-thirds of the nation's seniors already have viable prescription drug coverage. Many health-care observers, in fact, view it as a major step in a prolonged effort to revive ClintonCare piece by piece.

..."Political leaders . . . seeking to strengthen the state or to advance their own or their party's interests have used insurance against the costs of sickness as a means of turning benevolence to power."

So wrote Princeton University Professor Paul Starr, an architect of the Clinton health plan, in a 1982 book. Having failed to place one-seventh of the economy under government control in its first year, the Clinton administration now hopes to achieve that goal in its waning days by enticing the nation's seniors with the prospect of expanded prescription drug benefits."

[wolfman]

Medicaire is like a derailed train falling off a cliff, nothing can now be done to stop it's crash.. it's beyond the point of no return anyway, so we might as well drink all the expensive wine and eat all the imported caviar before it lands. The same can be said about:

Stock Market
Housing Market
The Dollar
America

[Uncle Bill]

Bill Clinton and Medicare and Circuses - The American Spectator - R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. - July 2, 1999
"And now there is his reform of the Federal Medicare program that will add the expense of "free prescription drug coverage" to an already shaky program. All of these programs, of course, will be entitlements if the President gets his way. That means they will grow ever more expensive in the years ahead whether the Federal Government has budget surpluses or not."

[TLBSHOW]

Hey UB good morning. I see we have more socialist BS coming from the republican prez....oh well won't get fooled again will we?

[Mike4Freedom]

I see we have more socialist BS coming from the republican prez....oh well won't get fooled again will we?

I keep wondering how many big government things GW can do before "conservatives" start taking notice.

He has promised to sign an assault weapons ban and now supports a Medicare drug benefit. This is a perfect example of a hugely expensive band-aid fix that leaves the root cause of the problem in place.

The Root Cause? How about the absurd testing requirements imposed by the FDA. Costs from $500 to $800 million are typical for new drugs. Do you think that those costs might just have something to do with the price of drugs.

We also know that the idiots in the FDA bureacracy are holding back approval of good drugs for years, costing thousands of lives in the meantime. The whole Martha Stewart affair originated with a totally nonsensical decision by the FDA to demand further testing of a life saving cancer drug using logic that only insane bureaucrats could understand.

[TLBSHOW]

If you think you're conservatives, you have a long way to go, because what some of you people were saying is not conservative at all. It's purely political.


Rush Limbaugh
White House Throws Principle Out Window

June 10, 2003


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/926558/posts?page=


Rush isn't fooled and as he goes on he will expose the truth to MILLIONS OF LISTENERS........

[STD]

Right now we have the richest retirees in US History. All drug companies have free medication for the truly needy. All I have to do is fill out a form and fax it to the drug makers. The medications are free for the patient.

[Ohioan]

Medicare itself is an inevitable disaster, the full dimensions of which have not yet been understood. But see, Medicare--Panacea or Death Potion?.

No one who cares about the American future ought to be supporting this.

William Flax

[philman_36]

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destitution, the more America's slip sliding away
with apologies to Simon/Garfunkel

[FITZ]

Can you imagine this? Americans paying for drugs out of their own pockets? The horror of it all.

That's the only way to bring down costs ---EVERYONE needs to pay out of their own pockets, including those on Medicaid ---they might have less money for lottery tickets and beer but it's up to them how they'd spend their welfare check or cash.

[Uncle Bill]

Frist proposes fixes for 'antiquated' Medicare

• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said yesterday that he could secure the nominations of Bush judicial appointees through parliamentary maneuvering, but said it would ''blow up'' the system and kill the chances of success for his next and largest challenge, fixing Medicare.

• He wants to provide a prescription drug program for seniors, who he said will spend $2 trillion on medications over the next 10 years.

• ''I'm willing, in the short term to create jobs, to borrow money,''

• the federal government won't be ratcheting down on expenses, with Medicare needs rising

• ''It's hard to imagine decreasing spending right now, for the next two or three years,''

• "In the short term, it's all right to borrow money if you're confident that you're going to be able to get job creation,"

[Uncle Bill]

Have Rush explain this Monday:

"All seniors should have help in buying prescription drugs,"
George W. Bush

"Yet the chorus calling for a benefit has become deafening. Even conservative Republicans have joined in. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, now blames Democrats for the lack of a benefit, saying they balked at earlier compromises."

SOURCE: Can U.S. Find Money To Pay For Medicare Drug Benefits?

---

Brought to you by the GOP and George W. Bush
Of Medical Marxism - The Washington Times

Compassionate Conservatism Means Big Government

Compassionate conservatism is about socialism

[Uncle Bill]

Socialism by Agreement

"It was in the late thirties that they revised their efforts toward incrementalism whereby they would first seek to socialize medicine for the elderly and then pursue their overall objective, one by one."

[D. Miles]

The idea is to have socialized medicine, period! Then we can REALLY complain about the cost and the lack of availability! We'll be in the leaky boat with the rest of socialized countries....just waiting to sink!