Five states sue federal goverment over Part D.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas and four other states sued the federal governmentFriday, alleging they are being forced to help fund the new Medicareprescription drug program in violation of the Constitution.In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas Attorney General GregAbbott argued that states should not have to relinquish taxpayer dollars topay for a program offered by the federal government.”The federal government has placed what amounts to a direct tax upon Texasand other states in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” Abbott said in astatement.A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did notimmediately return a call seeking comment Friday.The attorneys general of Kentucky, Maine, Missouri and New Jersey joinedAbbott in the lawsuit. Ten other states filed friend-of-the-court briefssupporting the case.Since Jan. 1, states have been required to send the federal governmentmonthly payments to help cover the cost of the Medicare prescription drugprogram.Texas stands to lose about $100 million from 2006 to 2009, Abbott said,contending the new system “will have some states like Texas wallowing in redink for several years.”In Kentucky, Attorney General Greg Stumbo estimated that the state will besaddled with payments to the federal government totaling more than $360million over the next five years, for a net loss approaching $20 million.Rather than helping seniors, the program is “failing our most vulnerableelderly and disabled citizens and it’s failing the taxpayers of Kentucky,”Stumbo said.A 2003 law added a prescription benefit to Medicare, the federal healthinsurance program for the elderly and disabled. It went into effect Jan. 1for those who signed up early and for millions who previously were coveredby state Medicaid programs.

Story from the AP via The Washington Post:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030301354.html