Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

It’s catching on: Even more newspapers are expressing doubts about Washington’s attempt to add prescription drugs to Medicare as an entitlement.

 “Overall, the main problem with these proposals is that they try to tack on drug coverage to an already overburdened and creaky Medicare vessel,” The Mobile (Ala.) Register writes in an Aug. 9 editorial.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reaches a similar conclusion in an Aug. 5 editorial. “Extending the logic of Medicare insurance to prescription drugs makes sense,” the paper writes. “The catch is that, whether or not seniors have a government-approved card to present to the pharmacist, covering all seniors without regard to income is a recipe for fiscal disaster.”

USA Today again weighs in on the Medicare issue with this July 27 view: “The last thing seniors need is for Congress to take the country down a familiar legislative path that leads to a new benefit seniors don’t want and taxpayers can’t afford.” Its June 11 editorial says: “By adding a costly new benefit without updating the rest of the program, Congress is squandering the opportunity to address other needed changes.”

The growing editorial chorus says the Medicare drug proposal now being worked on by a Capitol Hill committee is flawed and will cost taxpayers billions. The newspapers are liberal, moderate and conservative. But they all agree on this: The Medicare drug proposals must go. 

• More of Heritage’s Medicare research
• More editorial criticism of current Medicare drug proposal

For more information or to receive an e-mail version of “Medicare Maladies,” contact medicaremaladies@heritage.org or call Heritage Media Services at (202) 675-1761.

(“Medicare Maladies” is a regular feature, launched 7/14/03, from The Heritage Foundation. Sad to say, there’s another malady coming your way tomorrow. Daily “maladies” are also available on heritage.org.)