You don't have to be a Washington policy wonk to know
something's wrong with some Medicare bills pending in
Congress.
Rush Limbaugh thinks it's pretty obvious.
"We're talking about the biggest new entitlement program in 40
years, and it's not going to require tax increases to pay for it?
Of course it is," the national talk radio host said during an Aug.
4 broadcast.
Limbaugh's talking about two separate bills, now being hammered
into one by a Capitol Hill committee, that add prescription drugs
as an entitlement to the Medicare program. During his broadcast,
Limbaugh cited a Heritage Foundation research
paper by researchers Brian Riedl and William Beach that shows
adding prescription drugs as a Medicare entitlement will, among
other things, cost $2 trillion by 2030-with increasing costs
thereafter.
Limbaugh boldly added, "we don't need The Heritage Foundation to
know this."
He's right. Although
Heritage's Medicare research is top notch, common sense says
any bill costing at least $400 billion over the next 10 years will
mean higher taxes for you.
But higher taxes are just one problem of a Medicare drug
entitlement. Read more about them at heritage.org.
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.