Molly Ivins: Cynics, it's a great time to be alive ("drug bill = tax cuts"

[papau]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/columnists/molly_ivins/7251516.htm

Cynics, it's a great time to be alive
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

Gee, it seemed like such a good idea -- a plan to help senior citizens with their outrageous drug bills.It's bad enough that the drug companies are ripping off the rest of us, but seniors on fixed incomes are just brought to their knees by these unconscionable prices. They've been begging for help for years, and for years the pols have been promising to deliver. And now they will.
Oops. Bad news.

According to a report by the co-directors of Boston University's School of Public Health titled "New Medicare RX Benefit Means Big Profits for Drug Companies," we have once more failed to sufficiently overestimate what special-interest money can do to legislation written by our elected representatives.

According to the report, "An estimated 61.1 percent of the Medicare dollars that will be spent to buy more prescriptions will remain in the hands of drug makers as added profits."

Isn't that nice? Sixty-one percent of what the plan costs will be additional profit for drug companies. Just what we had in mind.
Only our fully-bought-and-paid-for politicians (in Texas, we rather delicately refer to them as "whored out") could have taken a plan to help seniors and turned it into a plan to help drug companies already making obscene profits. Their estimated increased profits under this bill are $139 billion over eight years.<snip>