Republican Medicare plan tanks in new poll

House Republicans are sure they have a new message strategy for their plan to gut Medicare that will make the plan not devastatingly unpopular. They even did focus group testing on it. Apparently, they didn't focus on the right group. This is from a new United Technologies/National Journal poll:

Asked what Medicare should look like in the future, just 26 percent said it “should be changed to a system where the government provides seniors with a fixed sum of money they could use either to purchase private health insurance or to pay the cost of remaining in the current Medicare program.” Fully 64 percent said “Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government … paying doctors and hospitals directly for the services they provide to seniors.”

Here's the kicker: "Even a solid 56 percent to 30 percent majority of Republicans preferred the current system."

That'll make the Democrats' job that much easier. All that they have to do is simply tell seniors what the Republican plan would do: put them back at the mercy of private insurance.