Most Americans oppose GOP Medicare plan-poll

[Reuters]

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Fifty-one percent of Americans oppose
the Republicans' plan to reform Medicare, with only 32 percent
supporting the GOP proposal, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup
poll released Monday.
The poll of 1,011 Americans, conducted Sept. 22-24, showed
that 17 percent of Americans had no opinion on the issue.
Republican-dominated congressional committees are expected
to swiftly approve Medicare and Medicaid overhauls this week,
despite Democratic protests that the public never got to see the
whole plans.
The House and Senate Medicare plans differ in some respects
but both would slow payments to doctors and hospitals, raise
premiums for individuals, and encourage but not require more old
people to move into health maintenance organizations or other
types of managed care networks.
Fifty-three percent of the people polled said they believed
elderly people would be ``a little'' or ``a lot'' worse off
under the GOP plan, compared to 28 percent who felt they would
be better off under the proposal.
Dissatisfaction with Congress appears to be growing in
general, the pollsters found, noting that 44 percent now felt
that policies proposed by the Republican leadership were moving
the country in the wrong direction.
That's up from 37 percent in March and 27 percent in Nov
1994.
Forty-one percent felt the GOP proposals were moving in the
right direction, but that was down from 53 percent in March and
55 percent last November.
Fifteen percent had no opinion.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three
percentage points.