The Medicare prescription drug benefit, which will cost an estimated $1.2 trillion over the first 10 years, was "premeditated taxpayer rape" and "a planned looting of the public on behalf of corporate interest," syndicated columnist Froma Harrop writes in a Seattle Times opinion piece. "To understand the enormity of the crime, note that $1.2 trillion is three times the $400 billion the president declared the benefit would cost when Congress voted on it," according to Harrop. She adds that the benefit "forbids the federal government to negotiate prices with drug companies," although "no one demanded that the Department of Veterans Affairs stop negotiating drug prices, which it has been doing for years." In addition, Harrop writes that the Medicare prescription drug benefit "forced the 6.4 million poor and elderly then getting drugs through Medicaid to shift into the Medicare program," although Medicaid "paid up to 30% less for drugs than do the private Medicare insurers." According to Harrop, "As an appalling piece of legislation, the Medicare drug benefit is a legend in the making" (Harrop, Seattle Times, 6/27).