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Democrats See Medicare as Winning Wedge Issue

WASHINGTON — Republicans are talking about messing with Medicareagain, and Democrats couldn’t be more enthusiastic.

After an election that has thrown them back on their heels, they are grasping at the politics of Medicare as a path to potential revival in 2018.

“We say to our Republicans that want to privatize Medicare, go try it, make our day,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the incoming Democratic leader, mustering his best Clint Eastwood/Ronald Reagan impersonation.

Since 1995 — when the newly installed speaker, Newt Gingrich, famously proposed $270 billion in cuts to Medicare and declared the program would “wither on the vine” because of the appeal of Republican-crafted free-market options — Democrats have seen the exceedingly popular but financially strained program as a winning wedge issue.

They aren’t the only ones; Republicans have some telling experience of their own.

During the 2010 midterm elections, what vaulted Republicans to control of the House was one of their most potent attacks on the new health care law: that the new federal coverage would undermine Medicare. The demand by a South Carolinian at a town hall-style meeting that Congress should “keep your government hands off my Medicare” was one of the most famous, if unintentionally humorous, comments of the summer of angry debate.

Medicare has clearly paid out political benefits to both sides. Now Democrats intend to capitalize on it again, beginning with their approach to the nomination of Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Price is not only a leading proponent of repealing the Obama-era health care law, but he has embraced Republican efforts to move future Medicare users into private insurance programs and raise the eligibility age. He told reporters shortly after the Nov. 8 election that he anticipated Republicans would embark on a substantial Medicare overhaul within the first six to eight months of Donald J. Trump’s presidency.

Senate Democrats intend to press Mr. Price on this subject during his confirmation hearings. They see a wide opening for political gain, given the 57 million older Americans who rely on Medicare — including many white Midwesterners with financial worries who voted for Mr. Trump.

“Good luck to selling that to the voters in Indiana and Ohio that were Democrats and voted for Trump this time,” Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said about a Medicare revamp. “They’re going to be fleeing quickly, right?”

A Medicare fight is also a potential political lifeline for Democrats in red states who could be in very tough contests in 2018. Ten Senate Democrats face re-election in states carried by Mr. Trump. One of them, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, has already made it clear that he will brook no overhaul of Medicare and that he intends to vote against Mr. Price’s nomination to the health care agency.

“The nomination of Tom Price would put us on a direct path to end Medicare as we know it, which would raise health care costs and break a fundamental promise to seniors,” Mr. Donnelly said in a statement after Mr. Price’s nomination was announced this week.

Democrats also noted that Mr. Trump did not campaign on the idea of tinkering with Medicare or its companion entitlement program, Social Security. In fact, his statements about those two cornerstones of American retirement security were that he would not cut them. That difference raises the prospect of a clash with congressional Republicans — particularly House Republicans led by Speaker Paul D. Ryan — who have long pushed for Medicare changes and championed them in House budgets.