Medicare Costs Are New Focus for Candidates
By ROBERT PEAR and CARL HULSE
Published: September 12, 2004
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - Medicare has suddenly emerged as a volatile issue in this year's elections, as Democrats are vowing to roll back a sharp increase in premiums announced this month and the Bush campaign is seeking to blame lawmakers, including Senator John Kerry, for the rise.
The trading of accusations reflects efforts by both parties to seek advantage with older voters.
Democrats, hoping to reclaim an issue central to their success in past elections, said they would try to block the 17.4 percent increase that will come out of Social Security checks next year.
But in a new television advertisement and in official statements, President Bush's campaign is trying to pin the responsibility for the increase on Congress and on Mr. Kerry, the Democrats' presidential nominee.
Republicans said the increase in premiums was automatic, and they attributed it to a formula over which the White House had no control. Moreover, they pointed out that Mr. Kerry had voted for the law that established the formula in 1997 as a way to bolster the finances of Medicare.
The formula was part of a huge deficit-reduction bill approved in the Senate by a vote of 85 to 15.
"There will be a real attempt to stick that on the president, but the fact that Senator Kerry five times has voted for the premium increase, I believe, puts anything he says in jeopardy," said the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee.
If Congress does not intervene by passing legislation, premiums will rise in January to $78.20 a month, or $938.40 a year. That is 56 percent more than the premium charged in 2001.
Democrats and AARP, a lobby for older Americans, said such higher costs strengthened the case for importing inexpensive drugs from Canada, a proposal many Republican lawmakers also support. But the White House, Republican leaders in Congress and drug companies have adamantly opposed opening the nation's borders to prescription drugs, saying the safety of imports cannot be guaranteed.
Leading Democrats said the issues of premium increases and drug importation were percolating through campaigns around the nation, particularly in states with large elderly populations. They said the Bush administration bore much of the responsibility for the increase in premiums because it had done little to control health costs and had directed too much Medicare money to the managed health care industry.
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