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March 26, 2004

GOP Increases Medicare Costs by $220/year

The GOP Medicare prescription bill is already costing seniors more money- a projected increase of monthly premiums from $66.60 to $78.10 for this coming year, then increasing to $85.60 by 2008-- an increase of $19 per month, or $220 per year.

The reason:

Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster said the increase would be due primarily to Congress' decision last year to block a scheduled 4.5 percent cut in doctors' fees for 2004 and 2005. Instead, as part of the Medicare prescription drug bill, Congress mandated that doctors' payments would increase by 1.5 percent each year.

So all of us who said the Medicare bill was a big fat subsidy to the prescription drug industry were being unfair.

It was also a big fat mandated payoff to doctors at the expense of seniors.

No cost controls allowed on presecription drugs, and none on doctors fees -- just Congressionally mandated subsidies.

Posted by Nathan at March 26, 2004 06:32 AM

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