IT'S EASY to portray Sen. John Sununu as voting to destroy Medicare, which Democrats are disingenuously doing, if you conveniently forget to mention that your own party refused to allow a vote on the bipartisan Medicare bill Sununu supported.

The Senate votes today on a Democratic leadership bill to postpone a 10.6 percent reduction in Medicare payments to physicians. Sununu rightly opposes the bill. Democrats and the American Medical Association say that if this bill doesn't pass, Medicare recipients in rural areas will see big service reductions.

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What they don't say is that Sen. Sununu co-sponsored a bill called the Preserving Access to Medicare Act, which postpones for 18 months the reduction in Medicare payments while increasing those payments in the meantime. It also increases Medicare funding for rural hospitals and physicians.

But the Republican bill didn't kill Medicare Advantage, which subsidizes private health insurance for Medicare patients. It's popular (about a fifth of Medicare recipients choose it), but Democrats hate it because it brings competition and choice to Medicare.

Medicare Advantage was created to cut costs and give Medicare recipients more options.

Democratic leaders are so afraid of Medicare Advantage succeeding that they killed a bipartisan compromise bill that would have kept it alive while postponing the physician payment cuts. (Sununu supported that compromise.) Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to allow any amendments to the leadership bill, which defunds Medicare Advantage.

The story here is Democrats yet again blocking any attempt to reform this runaway entitlement program while demonizing anyone who dares advocate making Medicare better.