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CBO increases Medicare Rx cost estimate

WASHINGTON, March 8 (UPI) -- The Congressional Budget Office has increased its estimate on the cost of the Medicare prescription drug program upward by $41 billion.

The revisions of the non-partisan office's original estimates brings the 10-year cost estimates, high above the $395 billion the agency analyst's projects in 2003 before the measure was approved by lawmakers.

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Congress Daily reported Tuesday CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said Friday in a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, the increase is the result of higher inflation rate estimates, larger costs for low-income seniors than originally believed, and the implementation of the law.

Other recent estimates about the long-term costs of the program have been much higher, but the CBO numbers are the closest so far in terms of direct comparisons of the original estimates used to sell the program to lawmakers.

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