I posted a response to this lazy piece of journalism over at my brother-in-laws's journal, but I though it was worth posting here.

Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion - Estimate Dwarfs Bush's Original Price Tag

It looks like the Washington Post did a good job of getting you to think that the President lied about Medicare. That's what they want you to think. All subsequent quotes are from the article.

"Beginning with his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush pledged to keep the total cost of the drug benefit to $400 billion over 10 years. An estimate by the Congressional Budget Office was close to Bush's figure."

It seems hard to say that the president lied when the CBO, which is fully independent of the executive branch, agreed with his estimate.

(The only point of mentioning one particular person who disagreed is to get you to think that the administration knew they were wrong without actually having to prove it).

So where did the extra $200mm come from?

"Last night, in response to media inquiries, McClellan revised the numbers once more. The most significant change, he said, is that the new budget projections tally the cost of drug benefits for 10 years. Projections made in 2003 included the two transition years before the drug coverage is fully implemented in 2006."

In other words, the intial estimates by Bush (and the CBO) were based on 2004-2013 which included the first two years of partial implementation. No that it's two years later, they are looking at 2006-2015 which include not only 10 years of full coverage, but the two later years where the cost is supposed to increase due to the aging of the population and inflation.

Think of it this way - I'm certain that you hope that your earnings will be much higher from 2006-2015 than they were for 2004-2013, especially if you were working part time in 2004 and 2005.

All in all, the article is only scary to those people who don't bother with the math, which is most people. I especially like that they throw out the $1.2 trillion number in the headline which apparently has nothing to do with the actual effect on the budget.