An overwhelming majority of Americans want Congress and the Obama White House to reach a deal featuring both tax increases and spending cuts to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, according to the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Click here for full results from the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf)

In fact, majorities of Democrats, Republicans and political independents each support such a deal.

Yet respondents are split over whether any kind of agreement can be reached, and nearly seven in 10 believe that the coming year will feature Democrats and Republicans in Congress showing little willingness to come to an agreement on important matters.

Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, says the public is sending this one-word message to Washington: compromise.

“Doing something trumps doing nothing,” Hart said.

Related: Boehner: 'Serious differences' separate GOP from Obama

The survey – conducted a month after November’s election – also shows a positive uptick in opinion toward President Barack Obama, and more negative views about defeated GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. The poll also finds that a majority of Americans now support gay marriage.

‘Hints of a thaw’

According to the poll, a combined 68 percent of Americans say that the fiscal cliff – the looming combination of tax increases and spending cuts set to take place at the beginning of next year if nothing is done – is either a “very serious” or “fairly serious” problem.

A similar two-thirds of respondents are willing to accept an increase in taxes or cuts in federal government programs they care about to reach an agreement to avoid the problem.

Asked another way, 65 percent say leaders in Congress should find a compromise to reduce the budget deficit, even if that means Democrats would need to accept targeted spending cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and that Republicans would need to accept targeted increases in tax rates.

By comparison, just 28 percent believe that leaders should stick to their traditional positions on the deficit – even if that means Congress goes over the fiscal cliff, triggering those automatic spending cuts and tax increases.

“There are hints of a thaw here, compared to previous data we’ve seen,” McInturff says.

Indeed, for the first time in the poll, a majority of Republicans (59 percent) want GOP leaders in the House and Senate to make compromises in order to gain consensus in the current budget debate.

Previously, in 2011, majorities of Republicans said they preferred GOP leaders to stick to their positions rather than make compromises.

And the percentage of Democrats who favor compromise on this question (70 percent) is now at an all-time high in the survey.

Who’s to blame if there isn’t a deal? Everyone

Yet the public is split – 48 percent of respondents are optimistic, and 48 percent are pessimistic – over whether Congress will be able to reach consensus to avoid the fiscal cliff. And another 69 percent believe that the next year on Capitol Hill will be marked by division and little willingness to compromise.

If there is no compromise on the fiscal cliff and the automatic tax increases and spending cuts go into effect at the beginning of next year, 24 percent say they will blame congressional Republicans more, while 19 percent will point the finger at Obama and congressional Democrats.

But a majority of respondents (56 percent) say they’ll blame both sides equally.

Still, twice as many Americans say they trust the president more in handling this fiscal situation (38 percent) than House Speaker John Boehner and the congressional Republicans (19 percent).

And significant majorities believe Obama holds a clear mandate from the election on issues related to this subject:

• 68 percent say he has a mandate on cutting taxes for families earning less than $250,000 per year
• 65 percent say he has a mandate on reducing the deficit by both increasing taxes on the wealthy and reducing federal spending
• And 59 percent say he has a mandate on eliminating the Bush-era tax cuts for household income over $250,000 a year.

Obama’s lift vs. the GOP’s decline

Speaking of Obama, the poll shows an uptick in his numbers after his victory in last month’s presidential election.

Fifty-three percent of adults approve of his overall job performance, and 49 percent approve of his handling of the economy – higher marks on these questions than at any time during the 2012 campaign.

Another 53 percent say they feel either “optimistic and confident” or “satisfied and hopeful” Obama will do a good job as president, which is up three points from Oct. 2012.

“Any president has a little bit of a lift heading into the first few months of any new term in office,” McInturff, the GOP pollster, says.

But if Obama is getting a lift after the election, the Republican Party is seeing a further decline.

The GOP’s favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll now stands at 30 percent/45 percent (minus-15 points), which is down from 36 percent/43 percent (minus-7) right before the election.

That’s compared with the Democratic Party’s 44 percent/35 percent rating (plus-9 points).

What’s more, asked to give a word or short phrase to describe the Republican Party, 65 percent offered a negative comment, including more than half of Republicans.

Some of the responses: “Bad,” “weak,” “negative,” “uncompromising,” “need to work together,” “broken,” “disorganized” and “lost.”

By contrast, 37 percent gave negative descriptions of the Democratic Party, while 35 percent were positive.

“Republicans have gone off the image cliff,” says Hart, the Democratic pollster.

“Elections have consequences,” McInturff adds about the GOP. “And among those consequences is the cost of losing.”

The consequences of losing also exist for Romney, whom Obama defeated in November.

Romney’s favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll is 35 percent/44 percent (minus-9 points), down from his 43 percent/44 percent score (minus-1) before the election. Much of that drop comes from Republicans and conservatives. 

Majority supports same-sex marriage

Finally, for the first time ever in the NBC/WSJ poll, a majority of respondents – 51 percent – support same-sex marriage.

That percentage in support is up from 30 percent in 2004, 41 percent in 2009 and 49 percent in March 2012, demonstrating how quickly public opinion on this issue has changed in just eight years.

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Dec. 6-9 of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents), and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.

Updated 7:48pm ET In the storm-ravaged states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, officials have moved some Election Day voting locations, although many remain unchanged.

As of noon Monday, Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill said that utility companies in her state have reported that electricity has been restored to all but two of 773 voting precincts in the state.

Her Web site posted the two voting place changes:

· Bridgeport’s Longfellow School polling place has been relocated to Aquaculture School, 60 St. Stephens Road, Bridgeport.

· New London’s Ocean Beach polling place has been relocated to Harbor School, 432 Montauk, Ave, New London.

Recommended: Romney, Obama hit must-win states in 'barnburner' campaign day

In New Jersey, storm-displaced voters who are temporarily staying in a part of the state where they are not registered, are permitted to go to any polling place in New Jersey on Election Day and vote by using a provisional ballot. The ballot will be forwarded to the county of the voter’s residence.

Tim Aubry / Reuters

Utility trucks and first responders navigate flood waters on the main stretch of road in Peahala Park, N.J., in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in this photograph taken on October 30, 2012 and released on Oct. 31.

Displaced New Jersey voters also have until 5 p.m. ET on Election Day to fax or e-mail a request for a mail ballot to their county clerk.

More information is available at the New Jersey Division of Elections website, on voting by fax or e-mail.  The voter must transmit the ballot to the county board of elections no later than 8 p.m. ET on Election Day.

Some counties in New Jersey have posted changes in voting locations or have alerted voters about the status of voting locations in their area.

Here are a few:

· Union County: County officials have posted an announcement that “almost all polling places are expected to be open on Election Day, Tuesday November 6. An updated list will be available later today.”

·   Ocean County: The county has posted a list of changes in voting locations here.

·  Atlantic County: The elections board has posted a list of changes in voting locations here.

·  Monmouth County: The county has posted a list of locations here.

The county also says: “Provisions have been made for residents in two of the most severely storm-ravaged boroughs to vote in neighboring communities. Sea Bright residents will vote at the Fair Haven Fire House on 645 River Road in Fair Haven. Loch Arbour residents will be voting at the Allenhurst Fire House on 311 Hume Street in Allenhurst. All other residents will vote in their own community.”

Recommended: Romney adds Election Day stops in Ohio, Pennsylvania

In New York, as of Monday morning, some counties were still in the process of finding new voting locations but had not yet posted them on their Web sites.

Suburban Nassau County, which was hit especially hard by last week’s storm surge and flooding, has posted a list of the voting locations that have been moved or consolidated, here.

In addition, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order on Monday that will allow displaced voters from one of the federally-declared disaster counties, such as Nassau, who may temporarily be in a county other than where they live to vote by affidavit ballot.

The affidavit ballot will be sent to the board of elections where the voter is registered. According to Cuomo’s press office, these votes by affidavit ballot will count for the office of president and United States senator “and for any other candidate and ballot initiative that appears on the official ballot where the voter is registered.”

Listed below are links to the polling place search tools that each state offers, but be aware that in some cases changes in polling locations might not be reflected in the voter lookup tool databases.

· Search tool for New Jersey voters here.

· Search tool for New York state voters here.

· Search tool for New York City voters here.

· Search tool for Connecticut voters here.

For voters who want to use early voting or an absentee ballot, here’s some information:

· In New York, a voter needs a specific reason to vote by absentee ballot, such as being out of the state on Election Day, having a disability, or being in prison due to having been convicted of a non-felony offense. The State Board of Elections has announced that the deadline for applying in person for an absentee ballot is Monday. Absentee ballots must be postmarked no later than Monday, Nov. 5. Those mailed ballots have until Nov. 19 to arrive at the local Board of Elections.

· In New Jersey, any voter can vote by mail. A voter may apply in person to the County Clerk until 3:00 p.m. ET Monday. Vote by mail ballot must be received by the County Board of Elections no later than 8 p.m. ET on Election Day.

· In Connecticut, voting by absentee ballot is limited  to the sick and disabled, those in active service in the armed forces, and those absent from their town for all of Election Day. The deadline to apply for an absentee ballot is Monday and the deadline for returning the absentee ballot is 8 p.m. ET on Election Day.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arlen Specter, a gruff, independent-minded moderate who spent three decades in the U.S. Senate but was spurned by Pennsylvania voters after switching in 2009 from Republican to Democrat, died on Sunday of cancer, his family said. He was 82.

Specter had announced in August a recurrence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, cancer of the lymphatic system. His son Shanin Specter confirmed his death.

Resilient, smart and aggressive, the former prosecutor frequently riled conservatives and liberals on his way to becoming Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator. He was elected to five six-year terms starting in 1980. He left the Republican Party because he said it had become too conservative.

Specter steered a moderate course during an era when the two major U.S. political parties became increasingly polarized, and often broke with his party. His sometimes testy demeanor and opportunistic maneuvering earned him monikers like "Snarlin' Arlen" and "Specter the Defector."

In 2009, Specter left the Republican Party after 44 years when he concluded he could not win his party's primary in Pennsylvania in 2010 against a conservative challenger. But his bid for re-election in 2010 ended in failure when he was beaten by a liberal challenger for the Democratic nomination.

Chris Maddaloni / CQ-Roll Call Photos

Former Sen. Arlen Specter prepares to testify at a Senate Judiciary Administrative Oversight and the Courts Subcommittee hearing on "Access to the Court: Televising the Supreme Court."

After President John Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Specter served on the Warren Commission that investigated the shooting, and he helped devise the disputed "single-bullet" theory" that supported the idea of a lone gunman.

During his lengthy Senate career, Specter was crucial in increasing U.S. spending on biomedical research.

Slideshow: Arlen Specter: 1930 - 2012

Tom Williams / Roll Call

The Republican-turned-Democrat, who played a key role in many Supreme Court nominations, was 82.

Launch slideshow

He helped get one conservative, Clarence Thomas, confirmed as a Supreme Court justice in 1991, while torpedoing the Supreme Court nomination of another conservative, Robert Bork, in 1987. He infuriated liberals during the Thomas confirmation hearings with prosecutorial questioning of Anita Hill, a law professor who had accused Thomas of sexual harassment. At one point, Specter accused her of "flat-out perjury."

Specter annoyed fellow Republicans by voting "not proven" on impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton in 1999, helping prevent the Democrat from being ousted from office over his affair with a White House intern.

Specter unsuccessfully sought the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. He had several health scares, undergoing open-heart surgery and surgery for a brain tumor, as well as chemotherapy for two bouts of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

In February 2009, a month after Democratic President Barack Obama took office, he became one of three Republican senators to vote for Obama's economic stimulus bill that Specter said was needed to avert a depression like that of the 1930s.

Specter was reviled by some conservatives for giving Obama an important early political victory. In April 2009, Specter at age 79 abandoned the Republicans - saying his party had moved too far to the right - and was welcomed by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as a Democrat.

Incumbent senators rarely face stiff challenges for their party's nomination for re-election, but Specter barely survived conservative Pat Toomey's challenge in 2004. Pennsylvania Republican primary voters are more conservative than the state's overall electorate, and Specter calculated that he could not win the Republican primary in 2010.

"I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate - not prepared to have that record decided by that jury," Specter said in April 2009 in explaining his defection.

In the 2010 Democratic primary, Specter had the support of the Democratic establishment, including Obama, Pennsylvania's governor and labor unions. But liberal challenger Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral and two-term congressman, painted Specter as a political contortionist concerned only about himself.

A Sestak TV ad featured a clip of Specter telling a news interviewer: "My change in party will enable me to be re-elected." Sestak thumped Specter in a May 2010 primary.

"He has been a serious and consequential senator for three decades, yet mostly ungenerous words come to mind: driven, tenacious, arrogant, self-righteous, opportunistic," Congress expert Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution think tank told the New York Times after Specter's defeat.

Specter was born in Kansas in 1930 during the Great Depression. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who owned a junkyard. Specter moved to Philadelphia at age 17 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1951, then served in the Air Force before attending Yale Law School.

He was a Democrat until age 35, when the Republicans offered their nomination for district attorney of Philadelphia. He served as the city's district attorney from 1966 to 1974.

Updated at 3:05pm ET The Senate struggled Thursday to push forward a bill to restructure the U.S. Postal Service, but still lacked accord on which amendments the senators would be allowed to offer.

“We’re really very, very close to getting something done,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday afternoon. “Our main issue now is whether there will be a 50-vote hurdle or a 60-vote hurdle,” he said.

The Postal Service is headed for financial collapse and perhaps for a taxpayer bailout. Whether Congress can avert this outcome and save it is the question that the Senate has been debating this week as it considers a bipartisan agency restructuring bill.

Reid warned on the Senate floor Thursday, “Those of you who are holding up the bill because you don’t like it, you may not like what the result of having no bill is.”

He also said, “If there is no bill, the post office will be drastically hit.”

Reid and his colleagues face a deadline: the Postal Service has agreed to a moratorium on closing any postal retail facilities until May 15, to allow Congress time to devise a way to resuscitate an enterprise that, if it were in the private sector, would be on the brink of bankruptcy or liquidation. 

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., seen in this February 2012 file photo, said it was "unthinkable" that the Postal Service could cease operation.

If Congress does not act by that deadline, the postmaster general will close more than 200 mail processing plants and take other cost-cutting steps.

But there’s discord among senators over what “saving” the Postal Service would really mean, whether it’s worth saving, and whether small towns from Maine to Montana will lose the post offices that serve as their community anchors.

“Its failure would deliver a crushing blow to our economy at a time when the economy is already fragile and it would be particularly harmful to people living and working in rural America,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chief Republican co-sponsor of the restructuring bill.

The legislation’s other chief sponsor, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said, “This bill will keep the Postal Service alive and I think it will keep it well and put it on the path to surviving forever – but in a different way …”

Noting that the Postal Service still delivers 563 million pieces of mail each day, Lieberman said it was “unthinkable” that it could cease operation, calling it “not just a relic of the 18^th century but a pivotal part of the 21^st century.”

Related: Save Postal Service! No, don’t! Readers weigh in

The Lieberman-Collins bill would use an $11 billion refund from Federal Employee Retirement system to offer buyouts of up to $25,000 to postal workers. Half of the Postal Service workforce of 557,000 employees is eligible for full or early retirement, Lieberman said. If 100,000 were to retire, the Postal Service would save $8 billion a year.

The bill also relaxes the tight schedule for Postal Service payments into a fund for retiree health care, easing its cash flow problem. And for at least two years, it would halt the end of Saturday mail delivery, as other cost-cutting measures were implemented.

Action on the bill was temporarily derailed when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tried on Tuesday to get a vote on an amendment to the postal bill aimed at cutting off U.S. aid to Egypt unless Cairo ends prosecution of American citizens pursuing pro-democracy action in the African nation.

Leaders of each party were working to reach a deal to allow votes on a limited number of amendments to the legislation. If there’s no deal on amendments, there will be a vote to move ahead on the bill Thursday morning and Republicans might block it if they can’t get the chance to vote on amendments they want.

Although Cairo, Egypt is long way from Cairo, Kentucky, Paul defended his effort to get a floor vote on his amendment.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at a news conference on the 2013 budget March 8, 2012 in Washington, DC.

“I was never preventing any action (on the postal bill). I just want a 15-minute vote,” he told reporters on Wednesday. The Postal Service, he said “is losing $4 billion a year and I think the American people would like to know why we’re sending money to Egypt when we can’t fund our own enterprises in this country.”

According to a report issued Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s fiscal watchdog, transactions at postal retail facilities have decreased by 18 percent over the past five years, while mail volume has declined by more than 20 percent. In fiscal year 2011, the Postal Service had a $5.1 billion loss and did not make its $5.5 billion retiree health benefits payment to the federal government.

“Approximately 80 percent of its retail facilities do not generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs,” the GAO reported, yet “the number of USPS-operated retail facilities, about 32,000, has remained largely unchanged” over the past five years.

An opponent of the Lieberman-Collins bill, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., said, “It is very clear that Congress and the Postal Service cannot make decisions.” The only solution, he said, would be an independent commission (akin to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission which closed military bases) to shut down redundant or money-losing facilities.

Mocking the Lieberman-Collins bill’s two-year study of cost control measures before eliminating Saturday mail delivery,  McCain said sarcastically during Tuesday’s floor debate, “Now isn’t that marvelous! Two years to study! It’s delaying what is absolutely necessary and that is to have five-day-a-week delivery.”

Illustrating the home-state concerns felt by almost all senators on closing postal facilities, Collins passionately defended a mail processing center in Hampden, a town in northern Maine. Closing it would mean that a letter sent from one town in northern Maine to another town just ten miles away would take a 600-mile roundtrip, she said.

“That (Hampden) plant could be downsized, but it should never be closed” she insisted.

Karen Bleier / AFP - Getty Images

Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, is seen during the Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing in this June 23, 2010 file photo on Capitol Hill.

NBCPolitics.com asked Collins Wednesday whether her die-hard defense of Hampden didn’t precisely illustrate the problem – few senators or House members are willing to allow a facility in his or her state or district to be closed -- so few are ever shuttered.

“The problem is there are (under current law) not (legal) standards when a center or a post office should be closed,” she explained. The Lieberman-Collins bill would set such standards. “Our bill does not say that not a single post office or processing plant can be closed. Nor do we dictate that certain numbers should be closed.” Instead the bill sets what Collins called “logical standards” to determine which ones should be shut.

Under the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, the Postal Service was supposed to be financially self-sufficient, covering its costs through postal rates and fees. But in its previous reform efforts, Congress has shown that it manages and sometimes micromanages the Postal Service, even as it advocates self-sustainability.

This week’s GAO report blamed Congress itself for making it impossible for the Postal Service to operate as a profitable private-sector firm would.

The GAO said, “On one hand, USPS is supposed to ‘act like a business’ and be self-financing, but on the other hand, it is restricted by law from making decisions that businesses would commonly make, such as closing unprofitable units.” For example, under federal law, no small post office can be closed solely for operating at a deficit.

Paul seems to see the Postal Service as a lost cause, calling the Lieberman-Collins effort was “too little, too late. I always ask people would you like to buy the Postal Service? If we could just sell it to somebody,” he mused and then pondered another idea: “Declaring bankruptcy – I don’t know if you could do it technically – but there’s been some discussion of that.” Declaring bankruptcy would allow the Postal Service to abrogate contracts with its labor unions “and start all over” with new contracts, he said.

But the Kentucky freshman senator acknowledged, “People are emotional” about closing post offices. “People come to me … Republicans who say, ‘I supported you (in the 2010 election), I’m part of the Tea Party, but don’t close my post office.’”

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

From left, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, unveiled a Medicare reform plan in a news conference on Medicare reform on Capitol Hill March 15, 2012.

Updated at 5:23pm ET Running a political risk during an election year, Republicans continue to offer proposals to cut future Medicare outlays.

The latest offering came on Thursday from a quartet of fiscally conservative Republican senators. The group proposed replacing the current open-ended, fee-for-service Medicare with enrollment of seniors in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) which offers an array of privately-run health insurance plans.

Members of the group include Rand Paul of Kentucky, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Mike Lee of Utah.

“This will be the new Medicare,” Paul said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “Medicare will be the federal employee health care plan.”

DeMint described the plan as “beginning to privatize” Medicare, an all too familiar description for Democrats who use similar terms to stigmatize GOP Medicare reform plans.

Medicare covers 50 million older and disabled Americans. The program’s spending will nearly double in the next ten years, continuing to grow at a rate faster than the nation’s income, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Paul said the plan “means-tests the benefits and gradually allows the age of eligibility to go up.” The current Medicare eligibility age is 65; his plan would gradually raise it to 70 by 2034. “There is means-testing in this -- and the reason you have to do that is: we’re spending more on Medicare than is coming in.”

Paul said the proposal would reduce Medicare costs by $1 trillion over ten years, but he acknowledged that adding older Americans to FEHBP would drive up the cost of the plans offered by FEHBP. He said the plan would include a high-risk pool “for really sick people” that get an additional subsidy. Paul added “they also still will have Medicaid,” the federal-state insurance plan for low-income people.

Recommended: Obama pushes back on gas production, prices

Democrats,  DeMint said, “know that a dependent voter is a dependable vote.” The proposal he and the other GOP senators were offering is “basically kryptonite to a Democrat – because it gives people choices, it gives them freedom … .”

Paul thanked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for letting the group “borrow” the idea. Paul said the plan was part of Kerry’s campaign platform in 2004.

In fact, Kerry in 2004 proposed to allow uninsured people, not seniors, to enroll in FEHBP.

“Entitlements are broken,” said Paul. “It’s not Republicans’ fault; it’s not Democrats fault. I tell people, ‘It’s your grandparents’ fault for having too many kids and then your fault for not having enough kids.’ It’s a demographic problem.”

Graham said he hopes to solve the problems with Medicare before the election this year.

“What I would tell the person near retirement is don’t fear change, embrace it, because you’ll have more doctors available to treat you and your family,” Graham said. “Think about not just what happens to you … think about where we’ll be as a nation if something doesn’t change pretty quickly with these big programs.”

The quartet’s proposal follows one offered two weeks ago by Sen. Richard Burr, R- N.C., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., which would also raise the Medicare eligibility age (to 67, not 70) and subsidize seniors so they could purchase private insurance plans.

Meanwhile House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, R- Wisc., has altered a plan he offered last year and reached across the aisle to partner with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. The Ryan-Wyden plans would allow seniors to stay in traditional Medicare or choose a private insurance plan.

Ryan is scheduled to give speeches next week at two conservative think tanks in Washington and is likely to address Medicare.

But Paul said on Thursday that the Ryan-Wyden option wouldn’t save the federal government any money. ”If you give people the inertia of staying where they are versus moving, they may not move,” Paul said.

The Ryan-Wyden plan says that for people who are now age 54 or younger, "we propose to strengthen Medicare by transitioning the current program toward a coverage-support plan with the choice of guaranteed coverage options -- including traditional Medicare -- on a Medicare exchange."

But critics of the Ryan-Wyden plan argue that it would not really preserve traditional Medicare since it would create a marketplace where future retirees would need to purchase coverage of either traditional fee-for-service Medicare or another plan, and it would limit future program growth to the Gross Domestic Product growth rate plus 1 percent.

President Obama, too, acknowledges that Medicare needs to be redesigned and wants some of those getting Medicare to pay more for their coverage.

Recommended: Biden names names; says GOP 'dead wrong' on auto bailout

In his Fiscal Year 2013 budget plan, Obama is calling for a variety of cost increases for people on Medicare, although perhaps it is no coincidence that Obama’s proposal would take effect only in 2017, after he would leave a second term in office.

Under Obama’s plan, in beginning in 2017, the Medicare premiums that higher-income people pay would increase by 15 percent. The higher premiums, co-pays and deductibles that Obama proposes would add up to about $33 billion over ten years.

That amount to only four-tenths of one percent of total Medicare outlays over the next ten years.

Nearly everyone in Washington agrees that the federal government can’t get control of its deficits and ever-increasing debt unless it curbs entitlement spending.

It was President Bill Clinton’s former budget director, Leon Panetta, now defense secretary, who chided the Senate Budget Committee a week ago: “You can’t meet the challenge that you’re facing in this country” by only cutting discretionary spending, the outlays on items like prisons and national parks, which is less than a third of spending.

“If you’re not dealing with the two-thirds that is entitlement spending, if you’re not dealing with revenues, and you keep going back to the same place, frankly you’re not going to make it, and you’re going to hurt this country’s security.”

But when leaders of either party do try to curb Medicare spending, the opposing side carpet-bombs them with TV ads playing on senior citizens’ fears.

In 2011, when Ryan offered his plan to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67 and to do away with Medicare’s open-ended payments which cover almost all medical procedures, one Democratic group ran an ad showing a man -- presumably Ryan -- pushing a terrified elderly woman in a wheelchair off a cliff.