Expanding Medicare to Include Prescription Drug Coverage Throughout the past year of presidential campaigning, one of the top issues for both candidates has been that of whether or not there should be a prescription-drug benefit added to Medicare. Both George W. Bush and Al Gore have proposed a plan to expand Medicare to include full prescription-drug coverage for senior citizens receiving Medicare, at the expense of taxpayers. It is obvious why this issue has been such a priority for both candidates. Senior citizens vote at a much higher rate than other age groups. Both candidates know the importance of these senior citizen votes and believe that the proposal of adding a prescription-drug benefit is something that will appeal to a vast number of senior citizens. Both candidates have portrayed the issue as being very critical and as a serious problem that needs to be addressed. The question, however, is whether or not such drug coverage is a worthwhile project to undertake. Is the problem indeed serious enough to call for the type of reform that the candidates are proposing? Medicare is already a very costly program to keep up, and adding prescription-drug coverage would increase these costs even more. In order to fund this project, there will need to be a tax hike. Should taxpayers subsidize this prescription-drug benefit? Is there a good reason why this redistribution should take place? What are the benefits and costs of this proposal? These and other questions will be addressed in this paper as we examine the following topics: the need for senior citizens to have prescription-drug coverage, the political rhetoric involved with this issue, the projected shortfall in the budget of the Medicare program, and who really would benefit if a prescription-drug benefit was added to Medicare.Need for Prescription-Drug CoverageMany people argue that the lack of a prescription-drug benefit is the major shortcoming of the Medicare...
