Republican Presidential Candidates Reluctant To 'Tout' Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, The Hil Reports

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 10 Sep 2007 - 2:00 PDT

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The Hill on Wednesday examined the "reluctance to tout" the Medicare prescription drug benefit among Republican presidential candidates. According to The Hill, although polls have found that about three-fourths of Medicare beneficiaries are satisfied with the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the candidates "have been hesitant to remind fiscal conservative base voters that their party midwifed the largest increase in entitlement spending since Lyndon Johnson signed the bill creating Medicare in 1965."

David Keating, executive director of the Club for Growth, said, "Any sophisticated voter or activist remembers that vote and remembers that's one of the reasons they got angry at the Republican Party. ... It's a no-win situation."

Presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has said of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, "We should have reformed Medicare and Medicaid to pay for it ... rather than add in a huge new entitlement." Former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.) has called the Medicare prescription drug benefit a "$17 trillion add-on to a program that's going bankrupt."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also has criticized the Medicare prescription drug benefit because of the cost. During his 2000 Senate campaign, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) called the Medicare prescription drug benefit "something you have to strive for," but he has a "comparatively bare public record regarding his views" on the program.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has called the Medicare prescription drug benefit a "great idea" that could "work out to the benefit" of most U.S. residents (Young, The Hill, 9/5).

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