Salon: Rx for GOP doom

[PhilipShore]

Salon
Rx for GOP doom
The Medicare drug program disaster could cost Republicans control of Congress
Feb. 17, 2006

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/02/17/medicare_fiasco/

Feb. 17, 2006 | If any single issue crystallizes the defects of Republican rule in the age of George W. Bush that issue is the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act. (It's also the single issue most likely to lead to the end of Washington's one-party regime.) Spawned by a White House under the influence of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, rubber-stamped in a Congress bought by lobbyists for those interests, and imposed on the nation with prevarication, duplicity and outright bribery, the drug bill represents everything Americans hate about the federal government today. Within its 400-plus pages, the act contains something to offend everyone, including a potential majority of voters in November.

Congressional leaders still proclaim that problems with the new program will be worked out and smoothed over well before Election Day, but they know that their political survival is threatened. On Tuesday, a delegation of some 30 Republican senators attended a closed meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Medicare administrator Mark McClellan (the older brother of the White House press secretary) to discuss how to prepare a political defense against anticipated Democratic attacks against the program. Meanwhile, newly elected House Majority Leader John Boehner has admitted that the program's inauguration was "a disaster."

As elderly citizens across the country continued to struggle with the program's complexities and inequities last week, the Bush White House quietly admitted that its own cost estimate over the coming decade has risen from $400 billion to $1.2 trillion.

That rather substantial budgetary revision brings back bad memories of the bill's passage in 2003, when the administration concealed its true expense -- and, as the press revealed in 2004, threatened to fire Medicare's chief actuary, Richard S. Foster, if he spoke honestly about that subject. (Foster's secret $600 billion estimate has now turned out to be too modest by half.) The Government Accountability Office later determined that the silencing of Foster was not only unethical but probably illegal as well.

[napi21]

1. This is one of the hugh nails in their coffin, but only one of many! n/t

[mitchtv]

4. We can only hope the Dems will use it

Maybe we can get Bob Schrum

[TayTay]

2. Does anyone have any screen captures of the House vote on this?

It seems to me that we need to show some proof of that 3 hour vote back in 2003 and exactly how scummy the whole process was. This would be a big help. (Maybe a few dates stamps that show the length of time the vote was held open and some newspaper clipping of Bill Tausin (sp?) getting the job after the vote with Big Pharma.)

It's the corruption, stupid.

[Patchuli]

3. Yay!!!

Kickety kick kick!!! :kick:

They've pissed off the elders, they're in deep doo in November...

[StClone]

5. I say arm the Medicare crowd

What could be scarier than people off their meds loaded for bear with little fear that they'll lose everything when they know they have.

[napi21]

6. AND...they are the group with the highest voting record!!!!

I'm supporting these folks! I'm 62, so almost there! But they have the highest % of voters in any election!!!!

I suggest the Dems go after getting the seniors, and the single mothers!

Just today, there was something published that the fastese growing segment of the American population is the single Mother, and the don't vote!!!!!

If we can get those two groups, the Dems have a WIN!

[mitchtv]

7. you would not believe the Bullshit with this part D medicare

It took from Dec 27th til yesterday to get a shipment from my mail order pHarm of course it was all wrong and Medicare won't pay for shit. that my old Co paid plan paid for everything is higher and FUBAR. I was on Co paid medical w/pharm they didn't tell us, and swithched us all to "the Plan" I have had to call an 800 # about 30 times since DEC. and wast loads of time per call. Each time getting a different story. If the Dems don't make this their headliner they are cowardly fools.. oh