in favor of raising taxes to do so, and only 12% were in favor of cutting benefits . Thus both presidential candidates have proposed a tax increase to cover the expense of the new drug benefit plan, as this seems to be the desirable solution given the options available.By proposing a tax increase to fund the addition of a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare, the presidential candidates are ignoring the more pressing budgetary issues faced by the Medicare program and creating something that will appeal to senior voters, but that is for the most part unnecessary.Who Would Really Benefit?In analyzing the proposal for a prescription-drug benefit to the Medicare program, we need to be sure and point out who the true beneficiaries of such a new program would be. As was mentioned earlier, two-thirds of those over age 65 already have prescription-drug coverage, and one-third does not. Of the one-third of seniors who don’t already have prescription-drug coverage, they either have access to Medicaid or else they are wealthy enough to pay their own bills. Thus, only a small portion of seniors (the ones who are rich enough to pay for their drugs out of their own pockets) would benefit from the addition of prescription-drug coverage to Medicare because they would have some of their drug costs covered when before they were not concerned about it, they simply paid for everything themselves and did not mind doing so. This is an inefficient transfer because the rich are simply becoming richer. Of the two-thirds who already have some type of prescription-drug coverage, a new prescription-drug benefit added to Medicare would not benefit them in any significant way, since most of them already have employer-sponsored supplemental health insurance which includes prescription-drug coverage. They would most likely continue to receive this coverage, and Medicare would simply replace their previous prescription-drug coverage, saving their previous...
