A few days after the government estimated this year’s deficit would be $477 billion, the Bush administration now says it will be $520 billion. In a related story, we are still trying to get a hold of what the Medicare reform bill costs. Just two months after it was signed, the White House now concedes the 10-year cost will be at least $134 billion more than the initial $400 billion estimate. That’s a 33% discrepancy before the first pill is dispensed. Who knows what it will be in a few years.
Administration officials would not explain the precise reason for the discrepancy. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said putting a price tag on Medicare “is a terrifically difficult area to try to predict” that hinges on “any number of unknowns,” including how many older Americans buy the drug coverage, how much pharmaceutical prices rise and how many people on Medicare switch to private health plans, as the law encourages.
“The bottom line is, President Bush made a commitment to give seniors a prescription drug benefit and modernize Medicare, and he’s delivered,” Duffy said.
This has become the standard operating method in the federal government lately–buy now, figure out the cost later. Recall that it took months for the Bush administration to come up with the first rebuilding cost estimate after we invaded Iraq. And the bills will surely keep coming.
Is this how a responsible government operates?