Medicare prescription drug
plan vote
slammed
as 'immoral'
by Common Cause
May 24, 2004--This study about the vote on the
Medicare Prescription Drug Bill denounces the immoral circumstances of
this vote. The first scandal came in January 2004, when US citizens
discovered the real cost of the Medicare Law: from the $395 billion
planned first to $534 billion. However the democratic process worked at
its worst. Representative of Michigan, Nick Smith, said he was pressured
and lobbied to vote yes to the Medicare bill. Moreover, it appears,
Congress censored for the first time in 25 years the C-SPAN camera that
records what the House of Representatives is doing. Furthermore, some of
the officials who negotiated for the Medicare law, such as Thomas
Scully, the former government official for Medicare, are now working in
industries that receive financial advantage from the new law.
