They were hoping for a repeat of the angry grannies attacking Dan Rostenkowski's limo secnario from 16 years ago, only this time with Bush and the Republicans as the targets of their wrath.

Yet every story in the media is more negative than positive.

They are out for blood. Every story is spun as doom & gloom. The polls indicate that people are buying it.

And then they go to the polling places and vote GOP.

The polls indicate that Bush is not loved, and that a national majority would prefer a Dem Congress - but Congresspeople aren't elected nationally, and telling a pollster that you're unhappy with Bush's performance IS NOT the same as saying that you'd vote for a Dem candidate for Congress.

If you break down the poll numbers on a district-by-district basis, you see that the GOP would retain Congress if the election were tomorrow.

He was never loved though. He won two national elections right at 50% in the polls.

Subsidies are always popular with the people who get them. They're not so popular with the people who pay for them.

And hey, how come OJ's cheering for Bush on this issue, while slagging Merkel for doing pretty much the same thing in Germany?

If Merkel had introduced such radical reform in Germany there'd be some reason to hope.

How is another expensive add-on to a hugely expensive government program due to bankrupt us in XX years a "radical reform"?

It's not expensive, in fact it saves money. But, even more important, in exchange for the program the President got HSAs through Congress after twenty years of Republican futility. HSAs are the radical reform. Indeed, eventually they get rid of Medicare entirely.

"Saves money" for whom? For the recipients, not the taxpayer. The current estimated cost over 10 years is $788 billion.

Sure, maybe that helped get HSAs through, but we'll see what happens with those. Currently there's no tax advantage to HSAs in California: the Dems in the legislature don't like 'em.

pap:

I'm sorry, do you labor under the delusion that not adopting a prescription drug component was one of the possibilities? When 80-% of voters in a democracy decide they'll have something they get it. This plan happens to be a very good one for a government plan and does save money overall. The overall amount spent on prescription drugs will be less under the plan than it would have been otherwise, it just so happens that some more of it will spent under government auspices.

Papaya: That expected cost will turn out to be too high, as the program has turned out to be significantly cheaper than expected. But even if it were correct, how could $80 billion per year possibly bankrupt us? If growth over the next 10 years averages 3 percent, then the accumulated growth over 10 years will be better than $21 trillion. If the federal government keeps taking 20% of GDP, the federal government's tax take will increase by a 10 year total of better than $4 trillion.

David, as Senator Dirksen is said to have said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." The Heritage Foundation, this month:

According to the trustees, Medicare’s long-term debt, based on a 75-year actuarial projection, is now estimated to be $32.4 trillion. Of that amount $8 trillion is directly attributable to the Medicare prescription drug entitlement.

And, of course, the long-term projections of the cost of social programs are always low, often just a fraction of the actual cost.

Oops, I posted without the link and without this item:

Current and future taxpayers will be faced with enormous burdens in trying to sustain the Medicare program as it is today. According to Dr. Saving, without any change in the program, Medicare will consume a larger share of federal income taxes, rising to 23.1 percent of all federal income taxes by 2020 and 37.5 percent of all federal income taxes by 2030.

Papaya:

What was the budget when Dirksen said that? It turned out no number of billions was real money.

If something can't continue unchanged, it won't.