Analyst Raises Medicare Cost Estimate

WASHINGTON -- Congress' nonpartisan budget analyst added new fuel to the Medicare debate late Friday with new, higher cost estimates for a prescription drug program that has already drawn fire for its soaring price tag.

In a letter to lawmakers, the Congressional Budget Office said its estimate for the drug benefits for the 10-year period ending in 2015 had grown by $54 billion since January. No cumulative 10-year total was provided, but a separate CBO letter used figures that indicated a total over that period of $849 billion.
...
Ever since they were enacted in 2003 for a presumable $400 billion 10-year price tag, the cost has crept steadily upward.

Lawmakers of both parties have accused the White House of withholding information about the program's true costs to win conservatives' votes that were crucial to congressional passage, a charge the administration denied.

Two months after passage, the Bush administration raised the 10-year cost estimate to $534 billion.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-medicare-costs,0,6289629.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

Must be Friday

In the old days, I remember repubs always complaining about any new program the "librul" congress started would keep spiralling out of control. Sometimes they were right, most of the time they were wrong. Now we finally have a congress controlled by the repubs, and they either 1) start a new program and then don't fund it (ie, no child left behind, war with Iraq) or 2) it spirals out of control within a few months (medicare big pharma benefit, oh, and war with Iraq).

in how he'll take our taxes and ram it down our throats if we don't agree with his priorities. All of this from a man who never worked a day in his life.

until it pokes through the anal sphincter...
Lemiwinks!!!!
Gastro esophogeal reflux....
Ask big pharm, there is a cure$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This is the 3rd such higher revision.

:wow: :wow: :wow:

We've got the government the rethugs deserve, God help us all.