During the 2000 campaign for POTUS, Bush`s original pricetag for reforming and modernizing Medicare, along with adding a limited, but market driven prescription drug component, was $158 billion. Today that 10-year cost has risen to over $400 and will probably double or triple before the time frame has run out.
I'm afraid the Congressional GOP and PresBush has created another layer onto the federal bureaucracy that is nothing more then a boondoggle and a waste of the taxpayers money.
Higher payroll taxes for my generation later on down the road, less discretionary spending ablility within a decade, more illegal immigration as more people attempt to enter the US to take advantage of this new benefit, and (forgive me for sounding like a paranoid kook) but possibly the first steps for nationalized medicine.