By ANDREW TAYLORWASHINGTON -- The Senate has rejected a controversial House budget plan for turning Medicare into a voucher-like program for future beneficiaries.
Five Republicans joined every Democrat in killing the measure, which calls for transforming Medicare into a program in which future beneficiaries - people now 54 years old and younger - would be given a subsidy to purchase health insurance rather than have the government directly pay hospital and doctor bills.
Democrats said the GOP plan would "end Medicare as we know it," and they made it the central issue in a special election Tuesday in which Democrats seized a longtime GOP district in western New York.
Republicans faulted Democrats controlling the Senate for failing to offer a plan of their own. (Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)Get more Politics & Elections »
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