About Medicare: Is the GOP Pro-Free Market, or Not?

The GOP remains the defender of the free market where healthcare is concerned; this is good. The GOP also ardently defends and in fact even broadly expanded Medicare; this is puzzling. Medicare is a massively expensive healthcare entitlement program, but the GOP is the first to squeal when the Democrats try to cut or alter it. If the GOP is actually serious about protecting the free market for healthcare - and I sure wish someone in Washington would be - they would be the first to cut Federal entitlement programs like Medicare. It's medical welfare, plain and simple, and the GOP is just behaving like another pro-big-government party (and we have one of those already). While it's clear that they're maneuvering for senior votes, this doesn't alter the hypocrisy of the position, and the distortion that Medicare continues to wreak on the American medical marketplace.