Vote on Republican Medicare Plan Could Shape 2012 Races
Will the GOP lose the rest of their momentum through medicare vote missteps?
Just four months into their new majority, House Republicans face a potentially defining Medicare vote this week that is sure to become a centerpiece of Democratic efforts to recapture the House in 2012 and spill into the presidential and Senate campaigns as well.
Newt Gingrich, a Republican weighing a presidential run, says he supports his party’s Medicare overhaul plan and budget.Republicans acknowledge that the vote is risky, and party strategists have warned House leaders about the dangers, aides said. But Republicans are calculating that the political ground has shifted, making the public, concerned about the mounting national debt, receptive to proposals to rein in costs by reshaping the program.