Democrats rushed Friday to blame republican senators for voting against a Medicare bill that would have meant that a greater number of older persons would have had access to doctors.

The fact that the bill hasn’t passed means that doctors will see a 10 percent cut in their wages effective July 1.

The chances of the bill passing were pretty thin anyway, since President Bush had announced that he would veto against it if he would have to. The bill was good news for doctors, who would have had to give less money to the insurance companies, money that would have entered in their accounts.

Stimulating doctors by allowing them to earn more money as well as making it more clear what kind of payments they have to make to insurance companies would have benefited senior citizens, who would have been more likely to be accepted by doctors as their patients under these conditions.

The republicans’ vote against the bill raised a series of protests both from doctors and from people who benefit of Medicare.

According to the Washington Post, Nancy Nielsen, the President of the American Medical Association, said that “A group of Republican senators followed the direction of the Bush administration and voted to protect health insurance companies at the expense of America's seniors, disabled and military families.”

Republicans replied to these accusations by saying that they had no choice because the democrats didn’t allow them to make any amendments to the bill. They also said that even if they voted for it, the bill would have been rejected by President Bush.