WASHINGTON, March 2 (UPI) -- Medicare's prescription-drug program may be the most financially irresponsible U.S. legislation passed in 40 years, the U.S. comptroller general says.
Barring vast program and healthcare reforms, the prescription bill will bankrupt the United States, David Walker tells the CBS News' "60 Minutes" in a segment to air Sunday.
"The prescription-drug bill is probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s because we promise way more than we can afford to keep," he says.
The federal government needs to invest $8 trillion at Treasury rates just to cover the gap between what the program is expected to take in and what it is expected to cost in the next 75 years -- and that is in addition to more than $20 trillion needed to pay for other parts of Medicare, Walker says.
"We can't afford to keep the promises we've already made, much less to be piling on top of them," he says.
The 78 million U.S. baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 become eligible for Medicare in four years.
When they start retiring, "a tsunami of spending ... could swamp our ship of state if we don't get serious," Walker says.
