Medicare Drug Bill Not in Near Future

Jan. 30 -- Remember during the presidential race of 2000 when both parties promised some kind of drug benefit? Well, today seniors still don't have it,because a lot has happened since that campaign. And that was obvious from the president's State of the Union Address Tuesday night.

In a speech that was confidently presented, but thoroughly bellicose in language, the president subordinated domestic social policy concerns to terrorism, homeland security, and what he vaguely called economic security.

The president said we would spare no "costs" in forging our "war" on insecurity from attack. But, when speaking briefly about the importance of "modernizing" Medicare with a prescription drug benefit, he made no such promise of action and no such commitment to do whatever it took to free the elderly of financial insecurity from drug expenses.

What Is Holding Up the Prescription Drug Bill?

Here are some of the reasons why you or your grandparents do not now or will not soon have a prescription drug benefit.

The first and most important reason is simple.

What President Bush would agree to as a reform would not satisfy the Democrats in the Congress and what the Democrats favor, Bush would veto. So, part of what is going on is stalemate over reform when the Congress is so evenly divided.

The same was true from 1961 to 1965, when Medicare was enacted. Put another way, when a big problem is addressed, neither side wants to let the other get the creditwhen they disagree about what's right to do.

And so what was presented Tuesday night was a policy gesture, not a proposal likely to be enacted.

A second reason is that covering drugs scares the devil out of thebudget folks. Prescription drug payments have been rising at nearly 20percent per year. Catastrophic protections — that is, deductibles of $4,000 or$6,000 a year — are not what the population expects.

But anything more generous is frightening for those in charge of public budgets. Sept. 11, the recession, and the tax cuts — all of these have driventhe great surpluses away. And it was the forecasted surpluses that allowedGore and Bush to trade "plans" as if the money was available.