Conservatives were saying that the cost estimates thrown around when Congress passed the prescription drug benefits were in fact low. Now, less than two months after it is passed, the White House has increased the estimate for the cost for the next ten years from $400 billion to $534 billion.

Administration officials would not explain the precise reason for the discrepancy. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said putting a price tag on Medicare “is a terrifically difficult area to try to predict” that hinges on “any number of unknowns,” including how many older Americans buy the drug coverage, how much pharmaceutical prices rise and how many people on Medicare switch to private health plans, as the law encourages….

I wonder why the White House all of the sudden realized their cost estimate was wrong, even though they were warned the estimates were too low? For some reason the term pig in a poke comes to mind.

“It’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel to say ‘We told you so,’ ” said Robert Moffitt, director of health policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that opposed the legislation on the grounds that it was unaffordable.

“All of us were afraid it was going to be greater than the estimate,” said Rep. Mac Collins (R-Ga.), who said that he and other conservatives had felt pressured to support the bill, knowing that Bush was eager to sign it. “It’s unfortunate that Congress was put in the position of dealing with a bill that was going to be very expensive, going to be an entitlement and was going to make it into law.”

Collins said the White House figures could stiffen conservatives’ resolve to impose unprecedented spending limits on the program. In a compromise, the law does not impose a hard limit on Medicare spending but would require the White House to alert Congress if expenditures rose above specified levels. “I hope Congress has enough backbone” to impose such a cap, Collins said.

I hope Congress has enough backbone to limit spending? And I hope Palestinians wake up tomorrow and decide to be friends with the Israelis.