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Owner59 -> Medicare...Politic`s New 3rd Rail? (5/26/2011 7:41:15 PM)
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http://beta.news.yahoo.com/medicare-third-rail-american-politics-113042065.html
.In the mid-1990s, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed for $270 billion in Medicare savings. He got a government shutdown and contributed to President Clinton’s reelection in 1996.
Last year, Democrats passed a health care bill that cut $500 billion from Medicare, and senior citizens issued a strong rebuke in the 2010 election, swinging about 20 points towards Republicans.
And now, Republicans have lost a special election in western New York and are worried that they might be putting their 2012 prospects in jeopardy with an ambitious proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
Social Security has long been called the Third Rail of American politics because of how politically dangerous it was to attempt to change the program (the term refers to the high-voltage third rail on train tracks, which is not supposed to be touched).
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