Medicare issues appear to be turning against GOP

Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential candidate, has linked Medicare's fate to the health care plan. Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential candidate, has linked Medicare's fate to the health care plan. Photo: OZIER MUHAMMAD Photo: OZIER MUHAMMAD Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Medicare issues appear to be turning against GOP 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

ORLANDO, Fla. - Maria Rubin is one of the coveted independent voters in this swing state - so independent that she will not say whether she is voting for President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. She does share her age (63) and, more quickly, her opinion on Medicare: "I'm not in favor of changing it, or eliminating it."

Her attitude speaks directly to one of the biggest challenges facing the Republican ticket this year: countering the Democrats' longstanding advantage as the party more trusted to deal with Medicare.

In the 2010 congressional races, successful Republicans believed that they had finally found a way to do that, by linking the program's future to Obama's unpopular health insurance overhaul and accusing Democrats of cutting Medicare to pay for it. This summer Romney resumed the offensive, eventually joined by his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan.

Initially, polls suggested that the Republican strategy was working. Democrats fretted that Romney would win the retiree-heavy Florida and increase his support nationwide among older voters, who lean Republican anyway.

Polls indicate shift

But in recent weeks Obama and his campaign have hit back hard, and enlisted former President Bill Clinton as well, to make the case that the Romney-Ryan approach to Medicare would leave older Americans vulnerable to rising health care costs. Now their counterattack seems to be paying off.

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted over the last week, found that Obama held an advantage over Romney on the question of who would do a better job of handling Medicare. That is consistent with other recent polls and is a shift from just last month, before the parties' national conventions, when the two men were statistically tied on the issue.

At the heart of the conflict is the proposal backed by Romney and Ryan to change the way Medicare works in an effort to drive down health care costs and keep the program solvent as the population ages.

Under their plan, retirees would get a fixed annual payment from the government that they could use to buy traditional Medicare coverage or a private health insurance policy.

Supporters say the change would hold expenses down by introducing more competition into the system.

Critics say the fixed payments might not keep up with rising insurance costs and could leave older Americans facing cutbacks in care or paying more out of their own pockets. Democrats contend that Medicare's rising costs can be held down within the existing system.

Current plan favored

In the Times/CBS poll, more than three-quarters of voters favored keeping Medicare the way it is rather than switching to a system like the one backed by Romney and Ryan. From the White House on down, Democrats are calling the Republican approach a "voucher" plan, suggesting that it borders on privatizing the system; Republicans prefer the term "premium support."

As that poll result reflects, the Democratic message is resonating with voters such as Rubin, who joined other independent and Democratic voters last week to hear Clinton make his pitch for Obama's re-election in the packed ballroom of a resort hotel here.

"I don't trust anybody who says 'voucher,'" said Gary Fieldsend, 62, a recently retired employee at a Navy shipyard who was vacationing here with his wife Pamela, 64.

The Fieldsends, from New Hampshire, another swing state, describe themselves as Democratic-leaning independents, and both said they were voting for Obama.

"I think it's very important that we keep it under control on cost," Fieldsend said. "But you have to cover people. Even if you've got millions of baby boomers, you've got to find a way to do it."