The Medicaid drug program wasted $329 million nationwide in 2009 from states all too frequently reimbursing for a version of a drug that is more costly than another product with the exact same active ingredient, dose, form and bottle size.

We have made promises in Medicare that cannot be kept, and we have compounded those promises with the Medicare Modernization Act.

Reforms that go beyond prescription drugs are needed if the program is to survive the financial pressures created by the baby boomers, who will double Medicare enrollment by 2030.

The new prescription drug benefit will be a fiscally irresponsible subsidy with astronomical long-term costs.

Panelists at a July 15 AEI event outlined the differences in the House and Senate bills and discussed the looming political battles and possible outcomes.

Medicare Part D — delivering prescription drugs to seniors — has been a success since President Bush introduced it. And the Obama administration plans to threaten that achievement.

President Barack Obama and key congressional Democrats want a better deal on prescription drugs sold to seniors. But if they get it, seniors will pay billions of dollars more for their medicines.

Many on the political left decry the disappearance of defined-benefit pension plans from the private sector and strive mightily to maintain them for public-sector employees. The people who put defined-benefit plans and policies in place assumed there would always be someone able to pay for them.