With a focused theme that has often eluded his campaign, Bob Dole on Thursday attacked Democratic ads that claim he would cut Medicare.
“I know it’s hard to get the president off his soap box. He’s out there every day announcing some new gimmick,” Dole said at a rally. “But I would say to the president, `Mr. President, why don’t you be honest with Florida seniors and other seniors across America?’ “
Although President Clinton has run television ads noting Dole’s vote against creating Medicare in 1965, the main attack has come from organized labor, which has run television spots claiming that deep federal spending cuts Dole has supported will reduce Medicare benefits to seniors. Dole did not mention labor, aiming his criticism at Clinton himself.
“As president, I will save Medicare for seniors in Florida,” Dole said. “I would challenge the president: Stop running all those scare ads.”
But Dole’s message remained essentially defensive, built around the premise that Medicare is in such perilous fiscal shape that whoever is elected will have to cut the growth in benefits.
“If we don’t do something in Medicare in the next 4 1/2 to 5 years, it’s going to be in real trouble,” he said.
The most recent trustees’ report, in June, projects that Medicare, a $181 billion program in 1995, will be bankrupt in five years unless benefits are restrained or the payroll tax, which funds the program, is increased.
Dole has called for creation of a bipartisan commission after the election to recommend steps to shore up the program.
Until he left the Senate, Dole supported the GOP plan that would have cut the projected rate of growth in Medicare over the next six years by $167 billion through reducing benefits and making policy changes that save money.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Republican plan would reduce the average yearly Medicare benefit in 2002 from $8,100 to $7,000.
Clinton has offered his own plan for restraining the growth of the health insurance program, and the benefit reductions are only slightly smaller than those in the GOP budget plan.
The CBO projects that the administration plan would reduce the average annual benefit to $7,200–giving seniors $200 more than under the Dole plan.
To some degree, Dole’s problems with senior citizens are caused by the Republican-controlled Congress and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who took on the politically difficult task of trying to enact a balanced budget by altering sacrosanct entitlement programs, like Medicare, and paid the price when Clinton successfully portrayed them as extreme.
Dole alluded to the problems he faces with senior citizens. He recounted how a woman in a wheelchair accosted him during an appearance at a retirement community and wanted to know what he was doing to her Medicare benefits.
“I want to reassure people everywhere I go,” he said. “We’re trying to save, preserve and strengthen Medicare, not destroy it.”
When Clinton mentions Medicare on the stump, he does not usually address the difference between the Democratic and Republican plans, but he does try to stoke seniors’ fears about Dole’s intentions.
At a recent appearance at an Arizona retirement community, Clinton said he was a believer in the program and, without mentioning Dole by name, implied that his opponent was not.
“Wouldn’t you rather have someone who believes in Medicare oversee the changes that must be made?” he said.
Florida Republican Party Chairman Tom Slade said opinion polls show Dole running 5 percentage points behind Clinton in the state. Florida’s 25 electoral votes are crucial to Dole’s chances of being elected. Twenty-three percent of Florida voters are over 60, and they usually account for 40 percent of those who vote.
Calling the difference in benefit levels between the two candidates’ plans “insignificant,” Slade said that Florida seniors are “confused, understandably so,” about Dole’s position on Medicare.
Dole intends to take a break from the campaign trail this weekend, remaining at his oceanfront condominium in Bal Harbor. Aides said Dole would spend his time preparing for the first presidential debate on Oct. 6 in Hartford, Conn.
