Sharon resident Jean Warner says she wants a revolution, a zillion people strong.

"We've got to get a big darn revolt, a huge march on Washington," says the 71-year-old Mrs. Warner.

Mrs. Warner admits there are kinks in her revolutionary plans. Among them, she says, many of her would-be followers probably couldn't afford a trip to D.C. and some can no longer make it up flights of stairs or across parking lots, much less the Mall in Washington.

And she couldn't muster a zillion people for a march, either.

But the reason for her revolt could resonate with tens of millions -- those who could find reasons to be angry over Congress' inability to approve a Medicare prescription-drug benefit.

The Senate debated the issue for the past three weeks but failed to approve a Medicare drug benefit, rejecting the last of four plans on Wednesday before leaving for summer recess.

Who could find reasons to be angry?

An estimated 16 million Medicare beneficiaries who have no prescription-drug insurance.

Millions more with supplemental insurance who struggle to cover premiums, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs.

Millions more with loved ones who could use relief. Those millions, it should be noted, have no idea what their own future holds. Aside from the fact that these millions could someday need life-saving or -extending prescriptions, the percentage of employers offering retiree benefits has shrunk 7 percent in the past two years (about one-third of employers currently offer them) and Social Security appears endangered.

It's a potentially enormous voting bloc made up of people who generally feel politicians in Washington are paying lip service but not attention to a worsening problem. Average prescription costs for America's 40 million Medicare beneficiaries have gone up 30 percent in the past two years.

Area seniors blasted politicians for their response.

"Politicians will promise you anything when they run for office. But as soon as they get in office they seem to forget all about their campaign promises," said Wheatland resident Christine James, president of the senior association at the Shenango Valley Center for Aging and Geriatric Health in Hermitage.

She pays more than $100 a month for a pair of prescriptions -- both of which recently doubled in cost. She said one of her doctors advises her to use a brand-name drug that costs about 10 times the cost of its generic counterpart.

Several other seniors at the Hermitage senior center said they also have doctors who encourage a brand-name drug over its cheaper generic counterpart; for some drugs, no generic counterpart is available. One smaller bill Senate did pass last week would speed cheaper generic drugs to the market, but the House has yet to vote on that legislation.

Mrs. James considers herself fortunate because, in addition to Social Security, she collects a pension for her years of service at Sharon Regional Health System and her late husband's Sharon Steel pension. She added that she has no mortgage payment to worry about on the home she has lived in since 1965, but of course there are rising property taxes to pay. "You really have to plan and think ahead," she said.

"It's the pits. It's scary. And I'm not alone," Mrs. Warner said.

Among her other expenses, Mrs. Warner figures that she pays about $300 a month out of pocket for her six prescriptions. The amount she doles out for prescriptions is about a quarter of what she earns each month through Social Security and Green Thumb, a program for seniors that provides job training and wages. "I'm going to have to find a way to make some more money on the side. Here I am: 71, and I've gotta work out of necessity," she said.

South Pymatuning Township resident Richard DeVenney, who takes eight different prescriptions, was among those who took a bus trip to Canada in June for cheaper drug prices there.

"Here we are, senior citizens who worked a lifetime, now we have to go on a bus to a foreign country," DeVenney told The Herald then.

Seniors aren't the only ones affected.

Greenville resident Clyde Anderson, 47, takes about $900 a month worth of prescriptions for various ailments -- he has to cover about half of the costs out of his own pocket. He has been unable to work in recent years and collects Social Security and has Medicare.

"It's very frustrating and aggravating," Anderson said. "I'm not looking to get everything given to me, but it's hard not to be bitter. They (politicians) sit on their high horses -- with full medical benefits and gold-plated retirement plans -- and tell us they're working on a solution."

"It just seems like they're bought and paid for and have forgotten what they're there (in Congress) for. It seems like in the last 10 years they've become so caught up in partisan politics that they've lost track of the idea that they're there to represent the people. They're supposed to be representing us; instead, they're on vacation right now," Anderson said.