Stop me if you’ve heard this one… The Bush administration prepared a detailed government report on health care benefits for seniors, but “inadvertently” left out information that shows burdensome new out-of-pocket Medicare costs for millions of elderly Americans. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. I didn’t think so.
With a new Medicare drug benefit set to begin in 2006, Americans 65 and older can expect to spend a large and growing share of their Social Security checks on Medicare premiums and expenses, previously undisclosed federal data show.
Information the Bush administration excluded from its 2004 report on the Medicare program shows that a typical 65-year-old can expect to spend 37% of his or her Social Security income on Medicare premiums, co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses in 2006. That share is projected to grow to almost 40% in 2011 and nearly 50% by 2021.
Unless Congress does something to hold down costs confronting seniors, the official projections suggest that health spending will consume virtually the entire amount of Social Security benefits when children born today reach retirement age.
So, shortly after learning that Bush has implemented the largest Medicare premium increase in the history of the program, seniors hear that their out-of-pocket Medicare costs are expected to double over the next 10 years, thanks to Bush’s “leadership” on the issue. And better yet, this information was conveniently withheld from a government report on Medicare.
The table was provided by the Department of Health and Human Services at the request of Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif. Stark, who opposed the drug benefit enacted last year at President Bush’s urging, sought the data after noticing that a chart included in previous annual reports was not in the 2004 version.
Stark charged that the administration threw out the chart because it shows future Medicare costs under the new law will erode Social Security checks.
“It doesn’t look good to lie to grandma, so the Bush administration has withheld information and come up with other creative ways to mask the damage they have done to Medicare,” Stark said.
Don’t worry, though, the administration is certain nothing was kept secret intentionally.
Bill Pierce, a spokesman for Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, said the administration wasn’t trying to hide anything. “We have a new program, and it’s got to be reflected with new information,” he said.
Oh, I see, Thompson’s HHS still believes it has some credibility left. How terribly amusing.
I seem to recall the last time Thompson’s office was telling the public that it had nothing to hide. We had just learned that the administration lied to Congress about the cost of Bush’s Medicare plan and forced public officials to keep the truth hidden until after the administration got everything it wanted. When the scandal broke, Thompson expressed seemingly sincere concern.
“There seems to be a cloud over this department because of this,” Mr. Thompson said. “We have nothing to hide. So I want to make darn sure that everything comes out.”
Everything, it turns out, except the truth.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is refusing to make public or give congressional Democrats the Bush administration’s estimates of the cost of last year’s Medicare legislation.
And now that a report has come from Thompson’s office that omits important information about Medicare costs to seniors, the administration again wants us to believe they have nothing to hide.
What’s that old line? Fool me once…