A donut hole filled with drug-industry pork.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - Brief article

I smelled a rat when Obama proudly announced in June that the drug industry had agreed to help Medicare patients fill the donut hole between the $2,700 ceiling that currently exists on the cost of drugs subsidized by Medicare and $6,153, which is now the threshold at which the subsidy kicks in again. The rat turned out to be that, in return for that concession, Obama had agreed not to have Medicare bargain for drug price reduction as the Veterans Administration has done at such great savings to the taxpayer.

Now it appears there is still another rat. According to a Congressional Budget Office study reported by Duff Wilson of the New York Times, the "concession" would end up costing Medicare...