FLORIDIANS WARY OF BUSH SOCSEC PLAN

The Florida Times-Union and South Florida Sun Sentinel had the polling firm Research 2000 conduct a survey of 600 likely Florida voters last week on the issue of Social Security reform, and the results show quite a bit of uncertainty regarding President Bush's proposal to restructure the program.

--- 54 percent say that the Social Security program "has major problems"; 29 percent agree that it has "reached a crisis stage".

As for ways to resolve the issue:

--- 53 percent say they agree with the idea of workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market. HOWEVER...when that 53 percent were asked that this meant benefits would potentially drop with the market, 56 percent of them became opposed!

--- 37 percent, a pluraity, favour raising the limit on income subject to Social Security taxes from the current $90,000...meaning, in effect, a tax increase on higher income workers. But almost as many, 36 percent, are unsure on the idea of shoring up the program through tax increases, benefit cuts, or raising the age at which people would become eligible to receive benefits.

The margin of error for this poll is +/- 4 percent.

--- 42 percent say they are "satisfied with the changes that President Bush has made in the Medicaid program's prescription drug benefits", while 48 percent were dissatisfied. No great surprise when it was broken down by party registration, with 61 percent of Republicans saying they were satisfied, and 65 percent of Democrats feeling the opposite. And among those 60 and older, 34 percent say they were satisfied, and 55 percent not.

--- On the issue of importing less expensive drugs from Canada, 64 percent of respondants say that the government should allow the practice, and 30 percent are opposed.

Something to remember in this debate:

``This is not just our tradition, or the tradition of the Democratic Party, or even the tradition of the nation. It is as old as the day it was first commanded: `Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, to thy needy, in thy land.' ''

President Lyndon Baines Johnson, at the bill signing launching the Medicaid and Medicare programmes on July 30, 1965.