White House Says Congress Underestimated New Medicare Costs

[zimv20]

link (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/politics/02BUDG.html?th)


Bush administration officials said Sunday that Congress had grossly underestimated the cost not only for prescription drug benefits, but also for private health insurance plans that would be offered to elderly people under the new Medicare law.


where is the accountability? does the WH take responsibility for anything that goes wrong?

or is this somehow the fault of congressional democrats?

[mactastic]

Link (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2001847950_medicare31.html)

Seems there is plenty of blame to go around...
Bush administration officials had indications for months that the new Medicare prescription-drug law might cost considerably more than the $395 billion advertised by the White House and Congress, according to internal documents and sources.

The president's top health advisers gathered such evidence and shared it with select lawmakers, congressional and other sources said, long before the White House disclosed Thursday that it thinks the program will cost $534 billion over the next decade — about one-third more than the estimate widely used when Congress enacted the measure in November.

But if you just blame those tax-n-spend Democrats, maybe it will go away.