Bush proposes hiking Medicare drug premiums

[babylonsister]

Bush proposes hiking Medicare drug premiums
By Jeffrey Young
Posted: 02/15/08 04:10 PM


The Bush administration will submit a bill to Congress Friday outlining a plan to raise Medicare premiums for higher-income beneficiaries enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug benefit, a change that would reduce taxpayer spending on the program by $3.2 billion over five years.

The administration’s actions set in motion a series of events that could lead to a full-fledged debate about the future of Medicare this summer, just months before the presidential and congressional elections.

The Bush plan would reduce subsidies for single people with incomes greater than $82,000 and married couples with incomes greater than $164,000.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the likely GOP nominee for the presidency, has long supported limiting federal subsidies for Medicare drug coverage to low-income beneficiaries while the two Democratic White House contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) have expressed support for expanding subsidies by lowering premiums to more people.

Democrats, already unhappy with Bush’s proposal to cut $183 billion in the Medicare budget over the next five years, gave the new proposal a cool reception.

more...

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bush-proposes-hiking-medicare-drug-premiums-2008-02-15.html

[kurth]

1. Stop shoving trillions into that Iraq quagmire

the asshole created.

[cbayer]

2. This was posted yesterday, but worth review.

This is possibly the worst bill ever written and putting bandaids on it will not help. I neither support nor reject Bush's proposal because the entire bill needs to be scrapped and re-written. It was basically written by the pharmaceutical industry when the republicans still had control over the congress. It is bleeding the Medicare system, costing much more than was ever anticipated. In addition, it is an administrative nightmare and patients do not understand it at all. What was supposed to be a good thing has turned into a monster.
BTW, prior to the bill, you had to be downright indigent to get any drug coverage at all (Medicaid eligible), so to ask for higher premiums from higher wage earners is not necessarily an option that should be discarded.

[Fridays Child]

3. I wonder what the Bush family's monthly drug bill comes to.

Let's see. Is pharmaceutical cocaine expensive?

[sakabatou]

4. Tax the poor, give millions to the rich