Poll: Public overwhelmingly rejects GOP Medicare plan

Americans think they would be worse off under House Republicans' Medicare overhaul by an overwhelming margin of 57 percent to 34 percent, according to a new Bloomberg National Poll.

Adding to Republicans' woes, 58 percent of Independents — a critical voting block — share those concerns. The House voted in April to replace Medicare with subsidies for private insurance starting in 2022, but the proposal is going nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The poll, Bloomberg points out, is likely to encourage Democrats to continue to use Medicare to bash the GOP ahead of the 2012 presidential election. Republicans, however, are urging for bipartisan cooperation on healthcare entitlement reform even as they reject any tax increases. 

"To get Medicare spending under control," Senate Finance ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said at a Medicare hearing Thursday morning, "the President is going to have to lead. He is going to have to put national priorities over presidential politics and address entitlement spending."