FOOL TED ONCE...:

GOP lawmakers, White House near deal on drug benefit (Larry Wheeler and Jon Frandsen, 11/12/03, Gannett News Service)

The tentative proposal includes a test of a plan, backed by conservative Republicans, that would allow private insurers to compete with the traditional Medicare health-care delivery system first designed in 1965.

Some Republican officials said the legislation could be brought to the House and Senate for votes late next week. But Democrats said it represents an attack on the entitlement program for 40 million older and disabled Americans. They began seeking to limit defections inside their ranks in order to defeat the measure in the Senate.

"We cannot accept a proposal that undermines Medicare as we have known it for four decades," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who had supported a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate.

Republicans pressed ahead anyway, meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and two Democrats — Sen. Max Baucus of Montana and Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana. "I think it's a middle-of-the-road deal," Breaux said. Baucus said he was inclined to support it.

Senator Kennedy realized just a couple days too late that he'd been rolled on the No Child Left Behind Act and he's trying to avoid the same result here. That little test program offers a template for how the program could be run once the Senate can't be filibustered by Democrats

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 13, 2003 9:51 AM