Obama's second term: The case for entitlement reform

Social Security is the dangerous "third rail of American politics," and Medicare is equally charged. Should President Obama risk the shock?

A registered nurse makes a house call for a 96-year-old Colorado woman on March 26
(Image credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

Tinkering with America's social safety net — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — is fraught with political peril. Trying to overhaul any of those popular-but-expensive programs is even more dangerous. In 2005, George W. Bush squandered his political capital on an attempt to switch Social Security toward a free-market investment program, and even his own party didn't go along. In 1989, a mob of surly seniors chased Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to his car and blocked him in over a recently enacted (and soon repealed) big change to Medicare. Still, President Obama has hinted at making changes to at least one of the programs, as a way to prolong them and tame the national debt.

The issue: Rejiggering Medicare, Medicaid, and/or Social Security

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