President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney first debated Medicare on Oct. 3.

President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney first debated Medicare on Oct. 3.

Medicare, the federal health insurance program for about 50 million senior and disabled Americans, is simultaneously one of the most popular and imperiled programs in America.

Its participants and their relatives tend to be highly satisfied with the generous health benefits it provides. But some 78 million baby boomers are now beginning to qualify for the program at a rate of an estimated 10,000 every day.

The first presidential debate earlier this month in Denver had an entire segment devoted to the subject of health care. And it's almost certain to come up in tonight's debate in New York.

But it wasn't the 2010 health law that the candidates brought up first in the last debate. It was Medicare. Specifically, each candidate went after what he saw as the weaknesses of the other candidate's plan.

Here's what President Obama had to say:

"The idea, which was originally presented by Congressman Ryan, your running mate, is that we would give a voucher to seniors, and they could go out in the private marketplace and buy their own health insurance. The problem is that because the voucher wouldn't necessarily keep up with health care inflation, it was estimated that this would cost the average senior about $6,000 a year."

Romney countered with a critique of what President Obama's health law would do to Medicare:

"For current retirees he's cutting $716 billion from the program. Now, he says by not overpaying hospitals and providers, actually just going to them and saying we're going to reduce the rates you get paid across the board, everybody's going to get a lower rate."

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Medicare: Where Presidential Politics And Policy Collide