Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

From yesterday's White House Bulletin:

McCain Says Ditch Prescription Drug Benefit.  Sen. John McCain said today that with the cost of recovery from Hurricane Katrina estimated to be in the neighborhood of $200 billion, the Medicare prescription drug benefit should be canceled.  McCain told CBS television, ?We?ve got to go back and look at the Medicare prescription drug bill.  It was supposed to cost $400 billion.  It?s now up to $700 billion.?  McCain added, ?It was a bad idea to start with.?  McCain also said, ?I say we?re going to come up with a simpler, easier way.  Those of you that are below the poverty line, we?re going to give you a piece of paper you take to your druggist and get your prescription drug.  For the rest of you, we?re going to work it out.  But right now, we can?t lay an unconscionable burden on our children and grandchildren by, in real terms, one of the highest deficits in the history of this nation.?  Asked what Katrina means for Social Security reform, McCain answered, ?I think we all know that Social Security reform is off the table right now.  Look, everything?s changed.  We didn?t anticipate [spending] $200 billion of taxpayers? dollars a month ago, and so everything?s changed.? 

A simpler, easier, and less expensive prescription drug benefit that helps low-income seniors? Robert Moffit lays out the policy here and Grace-Marie Turner and Joseph Antos explain how to build on the existing Drug Discount Card program here.

Extending the Drug Discount Card program in place of implementing the prescription drug benefit would save about $40 billion per year, going a long way towards offsetting Katrina-related expenses. Add in the $20 per year that Congress spends on pork projects, and Katrina could be fully offset in just a few years, without Congress having to cut any essential programs.

Members of the House Republican Study Committee have recommended a similar course, so far as delaying or cancelling the drug benefit is concerned. To say that the White House doesn't look upon these efforts favorably, however, would be an understatement--it has no intention to delay what it considers perhaps the President's greatest domestic policy achievement.