Legislate in Haste, Repent in November

First they forgot to cover pre-existing conditions in children.  Then it was that big promise that children could stay on their parents plan until they were 26 years old.  Businesses are now reporting they will take a beating in new expenses.  Now it seems retirees will as well because the plan raises revenue by eliminating tax break that kept retirees on company prescription-medication plans.  Millions of seniors will be dumped onto Medicare part D plans as a result.    So much for the "you-can-keep-your-current-plan" pledge.  Ed Morrissey finds the bad news buried in in this AP report.   Ed writes:

The Democrats in Congress argued that they would gain $5.4 billion in revenue by eliminating the tax break enacted in the 2003 Medicare Part D program as an incentive for businesses to keep their retirees out of the Medicare system.  Instead, they have given businesses a reason to dump their retirees out of the private networks and into the Part D system now.  Not only will the expected tax revenues never appear, but now we will have to spend a lot more money covering those prescriptions out of public funds.  The seniors in these programs will suffer most of all, as the Part D coverage is vastly inferior to the private plans offered by businesses in the private sector.

Businesses have been warning Democrats about this for months according to the AP report so it's tough to blame the Democrats for not having read this.  It seems more like they didn't want to hear it because they would have to find $5 billion somewhere else to pay for this monstrosity.   The alternative explanation would be they knew this might be a result and didn't care.  Frankly either explanation is credible at this point considering how poorly Democrats have handled this legislation.

Democrats own the health care system at this point and there will be plenty of time between now and November to analyze the fallout of their failure to consider the  real implications of their legislation.  Thus far, their big deal legislation is looking more like a monstrosity and less like a masterstroke.  Good luck with that in November.