LINK IT UP

Visit this website (http://openstax.org/l/lobbying) to read about lobbying.

In the early 2000s, about 40 million people in the United States were eligible for Medicare, a government

program that provides health insurance for those 65 and older. On some issues, the elderly are a powerful

interest group. They donate money and time to political campaigns, and in the 2020 presidential election, 76%

of those ages 65–74 voted, while just 51% of those aged 18 to 24 cast a ballot, according to the U.S. Census.

In 2003, Congress passed and President George Bush signed into law a substantial expansion of Medicare that

helped the elderly to pay for prescription drugs. The prescription drug benefit cost the federal government

about $40 billion in 2006, and the Medicare system projected that the annual cost would rise to $121 billion by

2016. The political pressure to pass a prescription drug benefit for Medicare was apparently quite high, while
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