“In 1962, I covered Congress as a reporter for a news bureau that included the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, the Columbia (S.C.) State, the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, WFLA-(Tampa) TV, 50,000-watt radio stations WDBO (Orlando) and WGBS (Miami) to name a few of the more than two dozen media outlets.

From that perspective, I witnessed one of the most lopsided presidential victories ever. Democrat Lyndon Johnson beat Republican Barry Goldwater, 486 electoral votes to 52 with a popular vote of 43 million to 27 million.

Only in Washington could a supposedly self-funded government program that’s operating in the red and facing insolvency walk away from an opportunity to save billions of dollars.Yet that’s exactly what Medicare, the health care program for seniors, is doing: shamefully ignoring an opportunity to save billions by forcing retirees who want to pay for their own medical coverage to accept Medicare.