It’s just the latest sign that ObamaCare will do anything but provide for the general welfare: The Congressional Budget Office has announced that the socialized health care plan will increase prescription plan premiums by 20%.

It’s an increase that will severely harm seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D. But apparently the Obama Administration considers it a necessary cost in order to bring about socialized health care.

Overall, CBO estimates that enacting the proposed changes would lead to an average increase in premiums for Part D beneficiaries, above those under current law, of about 5 percent in 2011. That effect would rise over time and reach about 20 percent in 2019. Beyond the 10-year budget window, the premiums would increase slightly more until the doughnut hole was eliminated in 2022; beyond that point, enrollees’ premiums would grow along with the cost for covered drugs. As already noted, the proposed changes would also reduce beneficiaries’ average cost sharing and their average total drug spending. The net effect on drug spending would differ among beneficiaries depending on the amount of their purchases in a year.

As the CBO notes, spending would decrease as the doughnut- hole closes, but that won’t occur until 2022 — about thirteen years from now. A 65-year-old senior citizen won’t see the hole close before his 78th birthday. And as Ed Morrissey says:

Until it does, the premiums would continue to increase past the 20% mark. Meanwhile, as the doughnut hole closes, people would spend less on drugs, but only those who ended up in the doughnut hole at all. One has to buy $2700 in prescription medication to fall into the hole, and spend an additional $1600 to crawl out of it. Not everyone spends $2700 in prescriptions — but everyone will pay the higher premiums.

Meanwhile, current drugs will stay around the same price, thanks to controls the Obama Administration negotiated with PhRMA. But new drugs coming onto the market? Their prices will be much higher.

Drug manufacturers would be constrained from increasing prices for existing drugs but could offset the rebates they would be required to pay for full-benefit dual eligible individuals by charging higher prices for new drugs—particularly for “breakthrough” drugs (the first drugs that use new mechanisms to treat illnesses). In addition, manufacturers would probably lower the rebates they pay to prescription drug plans. Although they would continue to have an incentive to provide rebates in exchange for having their products designated as “preferred” on the plans’ formularies—which leads to higher volumes of sales—the rebates would probably decline relative to their amounts under current law because the benefit to the manufacturers of those added sales would be reduced by the new discounts and rebates they would have to provide. Those responses would lead to an increase in beneficiaries’ premiums, CBO estimates, and they would also lead to an increase in beneficiaries’ payments for cost sharing.

But here’s the worst part: Many Americans have decided to solve the doughnut-hole by enrolling in Medicare Advantage, which I believe over 20% of seniors take part in. Except Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have planned to eliminate Medicare Advantage in their socialized health care plans. AARP, more interested in playing footsie with Obama than protecting seniors, hasn’t seemed to care.