From AOL Online News:
Medicare will have to begin dipping into its trust fund this year to keep up with expenditures and will go broke by 2019 without changes in a program that is swelling because of rising health costs, trustees reported Tuesday …The deteriorating financial picture for the health care program for older and disabled Americans is a result, in part, of the new Medicare prescription drug law that will swell costs by more than $500 billion over 10 years, according to the annual report by government trustees.
Poor President Bush. He thought he could get everyone to like him by expanding the scope of the liberal, socialistic Medicare program. This was the core of his “compassionate conservatism.” Instead, he’s going to get the blame for busting the budget. If Bill Clinton or Al Gore had acted to expand Medicare, they would have been heralded as saints. When George W. Bush does it, he’s a fiscally irresponsible President whose reelection efforts are now even more troubled than they already were.
How can this be? It’s called the justice of reality.
A President who tries to be all things to all people–to have his principles of limited government conservatism and eat them too–is worse than a President who’s simply wrong, as a liberal President would be on this issue.
Put another way: If President Clinton, Gore or Kerry harms medical care through further socializing medicine, at least they have, in the process, weakened the case for socialism and, indirectly, strengthened the case for capitalism.
When George W. Bush further socializes medical care, he not only harms patients; he also harms the case for capitalism.
This is because it’s assumed that his economic policies represent steps in the capitalist direction when in fact most of them do not. In the election of 2004, the Democrats will actually blame the lackluster economy and the failures of Medicare on capitalism rather than socialism. This sets the stage for even more socialism in the years to come, with an even greater disaster than currently projected for Medicare, down the road.
America’s compulsion for Medicare will inevitably hit bottom and I’m still confident that Americans can face reality when the time comes. Thanks to George W. Bush, the day of reckoning will take place later–and be more painful when it comes–than ever needed to be the case.