Page 5 - Robert Moffit News Today

Presumably, lawmakers recently created proposals that would offer prescription drugs to all Medicare patients because legislators thought they would be popular. After all, the first wave of nearly 77 million baby boomers is set retire at the end of the decade How wrong they are: The Washington Times reports that a coalition of more than 20 conservative and fiscal groups are urging lawmakers to scrap their proposals, saying they are fiscally irresponsible and harmful to seniors-the folks lawmaker...

An early look at Washington, Colorado and Nevada show their plans to provide more affordable coverage to hundreds of thousands of people aren’t working out as hoped.

If passed, the burdens of this monstrous spending bill will stifle our economy and fray the fabric of our civil society for years to come.

Members of Congress, their staffs, and approximately 9 millionother federal workers, retirees, and their families in the42-year-old Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) areable, unlike most americans, to choose a plan that best meets theirneeds from almost 200 private options nationwide, includingfee-for-service, preferred provider organization, and managed careplans, and those sponsored by unions and employee organizations.

Whether you are hammering out a union contract, settling theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict or getting your five year old to eatvegetables, everybody in the world negotiates.

Key senators are sponsoring legislation that would exempt federalretirees (including retired senators) from the Medicareprescription drug bill they approved earlier this summer.

Part of the new Medicare law calls for a "demonstration program" insix metropolitan areas, allowing private health care plans to offerseniors health coverage under the auspices of the ailing GreatSociety program. 

To meet a deadline that means nothing, set only to satisfy a president who seems not to notice, the Senate is preparing to pass legislation that would make HillaryCare -- the former first lady's proposal to socialize American medicine -- look like sound public policy.

Both houses of Congress recently passed separate Medicare "reform" bills designed to provide prescription drugs to all seniors. But if the bills are so good for the rest of us, why are lawmakers desperately trying to exempt federal retirees?

The cost of the Medicare drug bill, set to go into effect fully on Jan. 1, 2006, is not only high, but is certain to soar.