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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (26167)	2/9/2005 4:26:01 PM
From: ild	Respond to of 110194

Medicare Drug Benefit Costs Revised Upward By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Richard Simon, Times Staff Writers WASHINGTON -- New, much higher cost estimates for Medicare's prescription drug benefit touched off a storm of concern in Congress today, but Bush administration officials insisted that the problem stemmed from confusion over budget accounting methods and was not due to an unexpected surge in projected spending. Originally estimated at $400 billion, the net 10-year cost of the new outpatient drug benefit is now projected by the administration at $720 billion, after premiums to be paid by beneficiaries and other offsets are subtracted from a gross cost of $1.19 trillion. The new numbers raised doubts about the seriousness of President Bush's pledge to tame the deficit and sharpened debate about making permanent his first-term tax cuts.