The Smarter Darren Bernard

About you or his presidency:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — More and more Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay higher premiums for coverage of prescription drugs and doctors’ services under President Bush’s 2008 budget, to be unveiled on Monday.

Single people with annual incomes over $80,000 and married couples with incomes over $160,000 already have to pay higher premiums for the part of Medicare that covers doctors’ services. The income thresholds rise with inflation.

Budget documents show that Mr. Bush will propose a similar surcharge on premiums for Medicare’s new prescription drug benefit. In addition, the president will ask Congress to “eliminate annual indexing of income thresholds,� so that more people would eventually have to pay the higher premiums.

The proposal, expected to raise $10 billion over the next five years, is one of many advanced by Mr. Bush in a $2.8 trillion budget that aims to eliminate the deficit by 2012.

In his budget request, Mr. Bush expresses alarm about what he calls “the unsustainable growth of federal entitlement programs,� and he proposes savings in Medicare and Medicaid that far surpass what he or any other president has sought.

The president contends that he can make the rule changes without any action by Congress. But Congress could try to block some or all of the changes.