The Costs of Bush's Medicare Sellout
The Washington Times reports that what Bush hoped would be a successful attempt to buy votes with taxpayer money with his Medicare expansion is proving to be a bit of a headache:
There are two ongoing investigations into matters surrounding passage of the bill: one by the House ethics panel into whether Republicans offered a bribe to one member to secure his vote, and another by the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general into accusations that administration officials withheld higher cost estimates for the bill from lawmakers.
The administration has been hindered at every opportunity from making its case to the public, dogged by charges that its ad campaign is an illegal political strategy in a presidential election year.
And more bad news came this past week, when the annual Medicare trustees report estimated that the trust fund will go broke in 2019 ? seven years sooner than they had predicted last year ? partly because of the new Medicare prescription-drug entitlement.
