02-03-2001

MEDICARE: Bush's Drug, School Plans Greeted Skeptically

President Bush this week unveiled a temporary plan to funnel $48 billion
to the states over four years to help low-income Medicare recipients
purchase prescription drugs. But the "Immediate Helping Hand"
proposal was in need of immediate help on Capitol Hill. Members on both
sides of the aisle worried that the plan could distract from the larger
task of crafting a prescription drug benefit for all seniors or enacting
broad Medicare reforms. Sen. John Breaux, D-La., a key centrist, panned
the Bush proposal, saying it looked too much like welfare. And, after
emerging from a Jan. 29 meeting with the President, Senate Finance
Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and House Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., declined to indicate that the
plan would pass. Instead, they politely suggested it could be a point of
departure for broader Medicare reform. Some of the luster also came off of
Bush's education initiative, the subject of favorable commentary last week
by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. House Democrats led by Rep. George Miller,
D-Calif.-"Big George" to the solicitous new President-drew up an
education proposal promoting traditional Democratic alternatives, such as
investing in school construction, while omitting Bush's goal of providing
private-school vouchers.


Keith Koffler/CongressDaily

National Journal