Party Lines: GOP's Senior Class

W A S H I N G T O N, June 30 -- Less than a month ago, House Republicans showed little interest in passing a prescription drug benefit. Then party pollsters warned them that failure to act could help Democrats retake the House in this fall’s elections.

“Upset seniors don’t believe politicians, (especially Republicans),” read a memo circulated to the House GOP on June 8. “Understand how important and concerning this issue is to them … It is more important to communicate that you have a plan than it is to communicate what is in the plan.”

This week, Republicans heeded that advice, passing by just three votes a plan that asks insurance companies to offer benefits while providing government subsidies as a backup.

Theirs is far less expansive than President Clinton’s plan, which guarantees a benefit under Medicare. But Clinton threatens to veto the GOP version, saying it “provides more political coverage for Republicans who voted for it than insurance coverage for the seniors who need to buy medicine.”

Message Received

Both sides are jockeying intensely for the coveted senior vote, an electoral block that strategists have said is up for grabs this year. Seniors cast 25 percent of the votes in the 1998 midterm elections that brought Republicans within just six seats of losing their majority in the House. Eager to avoid another humiliation at the ballots, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., this week acknowledged the electoral significance of the drug issue.

“Some analysts out there are saying that this is the big political vote of the year, and they may be right,” Hastert said.

The debate was bitter, with Democrats accusing Republicans of deceiving seniors with a plan that even insurance companies won’t accept.

“Insurance companies aren’t money printers,” said Rep. John Tanner, a conservative Tennessee Democrat who has voted with Republicans in the past. “We had a private system before Medicare. The reason we have Medicare is that the insurance companies couldn’t insure all the seniors who are getting sick.”