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Democrats Relish Battle With GOP Over Medicare Boston Globe by Victoria McGrane—Now, a new fight over the popular entitlement program is shaping up to be an early battle between Democrats on one side and Trump and the Republicans on the other. Battered Democrats and their allies, in need of political reinvigoration after Trump and Republicans stunned them in last month’s elections, are readying their powerful, emotional lobbying efforts to stave off changes in Medicare. Advocacy groups including AARP, the powerful seniors lobby with close to 38 million members, are pulling out battle-tested weapons and drawing up plans of attack. A key part of the strategy will be using Trump’s own promises from the campaign trail to not cut Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor.
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GOP's Medicare Plans Run into Wall in the Senate Politico by Jennifer Haberkorn & Adam Cancryn—The GOP’s dream of privatizing parts of Medicare is running up against resistance from Senate Republicans. Interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers reveal they’re not planning to pursue big changes to the popular health care program for seniors—at least not in the first year of the Trump administration. That hesitation starts with the chairman who would lead any overhaul in the Senate. “We’ll have to see,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), head of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare. “We’re going to have a whole new look at a lot of things. … It depends on what it is. It depends on how it is written. It depends on what it would do.”