Medicare Boondoggle Brouhaha

Too Much By Far: The news that Thomas Scully threatened the Medicare actuary with dismissal if he revealed the true cost estimates of Medicare drug benefits to Congress is disheartening, but in keeping with Mr. Scully's character. (He once refused to testify before Congress, even when they gave him a subpoena.) However, no matter how you look at it, that benefit program is too costly:

Dated June 11, 2003, the document put the cost at $551.5 billion over 10 years. It appeared to confirm what Ms. Bjorklund and her bosses on the House Ways and Means Committee had long suspected: the actuary, Richard S. Foster, had concluded the legislation would be far more expensive than Congress's $400 billion estimate — and had kept quiet while lawmakers voted on the bill and President Bush signed it into law.

Whether it's $400 billion or $500 billion, it's still hundreds of billions too much. And while those Democratic senators are waxing indignant over the price tag, let's remember that their biggest complaint at the time was that the bill didn't do enough for seniors, not that it cost too much.