You can debate the semantics & constitutionality of Medicare until the cows come home but if a huge chunk of people whine about high Rx costs to politicians, politicians such as Bush will always concede in the end just like the 2003 tax cuts when those who didn't pay any taxes wanted their "tax cut" too.
According to the Bush defenders, the President doesn't pay attention to polls and he is all about leadership. What the people want isn't important. Damn the polls, full speed ahead. Instead, Bush decided to listen to SOME people and along with the GOP Congress, passed a trillion dollar drug program into law, just to make the people happy. LOL Bush and the GOP COngress still won't allow Americans complete access to lower priced drugs from Canada and other nations. But Bush will let the federal government subsidize drugs to the elderly masses. Sounds like social engineering of the first order, aka. "socialism".