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The politics of Medicare: GOP sees victory; Dems await backlash

By David S. Broder and Ceci Connolly
The Washington Post

	CHARLES KRUPA / AP Myra McCoy, 76, of Cambridge, Mass., tears up her AARP card outside the organization's Boston office yesterday. Several dozen angry seniors gathered to criticize the group's support of the Medicare bill.
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WASHINGTON — With the Senate moving toward final congressional approval of his Medicare prescription-drug bill, President Bush has made a bid to break the historic political alliance between Democrats and senior citizens — a feat that could change the dynamics of next year's election and perhaps long-term partisan patterns in this country.

But some Democrats, reeling from defeat on an issue they long saw as their own, said a voter backlash against a measure they consider deeply flawed could still work to their benefit.

Neutral observers said they expected Bush and the Republicans to reap immediate political benefits for breaking the gridlock in Washington that has stymied most major medical bills for more than a decade.

But despite the GOP's victory dance, a variety of political analysts said the effects in 2004 and later are more difficult to predict.

Thomas Mann, a Brookings Institution authority on Congress, said enactment of the legislation "is not the end of the story, but the beginning of a great political struggle to define its meaning. You can't know how it will play out in 2004 because you don't know who will define it. The president has the advantage of the bully pulpit, but Democrats are more trusted on Medicare. So it's not a lay-down by any means."

Both political parties moved immediately to exploit the legislative battle. Democrats sent releases to 42 targeted Republican House districts, claiming the incumbents had voted for a bill "that dismantles Medicare." Republicans hit 65 Democratic members with the claim that they "chose politics over the seniors" in their districts.

The bill's supporters received a major boost last week when AARP, the 35 million-member organization for people older than 50, endorsed the measure and began an advertising campaign urging lawmakers' support.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush introduced a plan to subsidize drug purchases for low-income seniors and promised to "make prescription drugs available and affordable for every senior who needs them." Republican ads, backed by extensive independent spending by pharmaceutical companies and business associations, were credited with reducing Democratic opponent Al Gore's advantage on the Medicare issue.

"This is another core Democratic issue that will be in the Bush column come Election Day, alongside education," said Republican strategist Scott Reed.

"It is a big short-term victory for Bush," said Democratic consultant Anita Dunn. "He can say he has actually done something on domestic policy and health care."

History suggests that older voters will scrutinize the program and weigh its effects on their pocketbooks. Democrats were recalling the fiasco in the Reagan years when Congress passed a bill to insure seniors against medical catastrophes, only to run into a backlash that forced its repeal.

But John Rother, AARP's policy director, said his organization, which was burned in that backlash, was confident it would not be repeated. Unlike the catastrophic legislation, he said, "this is a voluntary program. ... Second, catastrophic was financed by its beneficiaries. That is not the case here. There is $400 billion in general revenues. And finally, in catastrophic, the revenues were collected a year before there were any benefits."

Next year, well before Election Day, seniors will receive a drug-discount card, which GOP pollster Bill McInturff calls "a tangible down payment on benefits to come."

But Doug Hattaway, a Democratic consultant, argued that with drug benefits not scheduled to begin until 2006, "there will be plenty of time to raise these questions about the program."

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company