The GOP's Medicare confusion  —  The austerity crisis talks have hit a peculiar impasse.  The problem isn't, as most analysts expected, taxes, where Republicans seem increasingly resigned to new revenue.  It's Medicare.  And the particular Medicare problem isn't that Democrats are refusing the GOP's proposed Medicare cuts.

Inside the ‘fiscal cliff’ haggling over Medicare  —  Some more quick notes about that big Politico piece on what's going on in the fiscal cliff talks.  The piece makes two points about the haggling over Medicare's future that are worth addressing.  First, it says in passing that Dem aides …