a drug-induced stupor

I read on Yahoo! that the prescription benefit for Medicare recipients that Bush bragged about during the presidential debates and took credit for is going to cost us $724 billion over the next ten years. Bush said there was “an unfunded liability inherent in Medicare” that the administration and congress would have to address, someday. But he doesn’t have time to work on that, now, because he is going to be spending his time screwing up social security more than he already has. It’s hard work.

Back when I was working, the guy that worked for me felt he got screwed over by upper management and quit and I started doing his job, too. I told everyone I was doing the work of two men. The presidency is obviously a much more responsible position that I have ever occupied, so we could say that Bush is doing the work of three men.

Moe, Larry and Curly.

Now, I know many of you are saying, “Jimbo, you tight-ass piece of crap. Your own gray-haired mother, who scrimped and sacrificed so you could be where you are today, is one of the group eligible for the Medicare prescription benefit. How can you be so cheap that you aren’t willing to pay a little extra in taxes so the woman who brought you into this world could save some big money on the medicines that she needs to be able to stay healthy and active?”

A tough question, but fair.

And, my answer is that if I were paying extra taxes so my mother could live better, I would do it without question. Retirees who collect social security and who are covered by Medicare deserve all they receive. They tacitly agreed to a social contract that stipulated if they worked and paid into the system that they would receive a defined benefit when they turned 65. I have also paid into it and I expect a benefit when I retire. My problem with this is that the current administration and congress have blown our money on meaningless crap over the last four years and spent more than we have taken in. It’s kind of like they have taken out one of those thirty year mortgages where you only pay the interest the first fifteen years, and the sixteenth year the payments go way up. And it is like they are paying the minimum payments on our credit cards, charging more and signing up for more new credit cards. We’ve never seen this kind of fiscal irresponsibility. It is our progeny that will pay the bills for all of these excesses. You can’t borrow money forever without bills coming due eventually.

Then, to top it all off, my mother has done the hard math-- she’s crunched the numbers to see how huge the savings on her prescriptions will be. She put on the green eyeshade and ran the calculations to see how large a benefit will be realized from this outlay of $724 billion. I won’t bore you will the figures, although I’m sure many of you would like to see the work-up, but here is the result.

Squat.

How much will my mother benefit?

Zero. Nada. Zilch. Squat.

There. That is an efficient use of my son’s money. Because it will be the next generation that pays for this.

Now, I will grant you, there will be some Medicare recipients, whose prescription costs are outrageous who will benefit from the prescription coverage, because some prescription medicines are so high priced. And the high cost of health care has to be addressed. Twenty years ago it was the primary drain on our economy. It still is and this administration has done nothing about it. As more people lose their healthcare coverage, the more expensive it becomes for everyone else. The more people that have healthcare coverage, the more economical it becomes, because of economies of scale. If we could get everyone covered, the cost would be affordable. And congress and the administration would have to spend their $724 billion on something else. Of course, knowing how our government thinks today, that would probably be a war in Iran or Korea.

You know how politicians are when they’ve got an extra $724 billion burning a hole in their pocket. I guess they just need to come to Jimbo to find out how it should be spent properly.

Because in Jimbo’s world we watch our pennies and nickels and we know the value of a dollar.