Drug plan for seniors risks replay of 'catastrophic' past

In 1988, President Reagan urged lawmakers to expand Medicare to cover catastrophic medical expenses under a modest plan that was supposed to cost seniors a mere $60 a year and taxpayers nothing. By the time it was enacted, Congress had passed a far more expansive bill. It included drug coverage and required seniors to pay as much as $800 a year for benefits inferior to the less-expensive private coverage many already had. The zero-cost promise to taxpayers also was broken. Within 18 months, the 'catastrophic care' bill turned into a political catastrophe as a revolt by seniors forced Congress to repeal the law.

Fifteen years later, lawmakers are making some of the same mistakes. The drug benefits that House and Senate negotiators are trying to pass threaten to ensnare seniors once again in a drug plan with high costs and glaring coverage gaps, while putting taxpayers on the hook for more than a trillion dollars in new costs over the next 20 years.

Except this time, seniors are recoiling even before the two houses finish ironing out differences between the bills passed in June. This month, the AARP, the powerful retirees group with more than 35 million members, sent a lengthy critique of the drug plans to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. The National Association of Retired Federal Employees announced its opposition to the plans in June.

Doing nothing about the high cost of prescription drugs is not the answer for the quarter of seniors lacking any coverage. Yet passing a flawed bill that makes the problem worse is no solution, either.

EL - Kennedy was wrong, this bill is a disaster nobody but Bush/Rove wants.