Wash Times: Medicare reform backfires on Bush

[CatWoman]

what's going on here? The Moonie Times criticizing the great and powerful Oz, er, I mean *??? Are the rats jumping ship?

President Bush signed a prescription-drug act two months ago that is actually hurting his popularity instead of boosting support from the elderly as intended.

A Gallup survey found that public disapproval of Mr. Bush's handling of health care has increased 13 percentage points since last year. The Jan. 19-Feb. 1 survey found 57 percent of the 1,001 Americans surveyed disapprove of Mr. Bush's health care policies, compared to 35 percent of voters who approve.

Mr. Bush finds himself under fire from two directions on the health care issue. Democrats say the Medicare plan doesn't do enough to defray prescription expenses for retirees, and Republican critics call the drug benefit an unprincipled bid to buy votes in November.

Critics accuse the Bush administration of lying about the bill's cost to taxpayers. While pushing the Medicare bill on Capitol Hill, the White House estimated the new drug benefit would cost $400 billion over the next 10 years. But when Mr. Bush released his fiscal 2005 budget earlier this month, that cost was estimated at $534 billion.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040217-095717-8816r

[sweetcee]

1. Our entire healthcare system

is near collapse. Where I live, hospitals have closed (including the county one for indigent people; employers are cutting off covering health insurance and there is real anger.

Bush definitely has opposition from within his own party, but, then again, he has taken it down such a crazy fundie path!

[CatWoman]

2. I see you making the rounds, Sweetcee

welcome to DU!!

:hi: