What the **** are you talking about? Ending Medicare would be suicidal for ANY politician.
Getting rid of Medicare and Social Security will be a slow process, accompanied by lots of information distortion and trickery.
You're right about how much politicians worry about being seen as anti-medicare.
This is why the GOP had to kill ObmaCare. Their worry was not that it wouldn't work, but that it would work too well, like Social Security. The last thing the GOP can afford is for the Liberals to create another generation of loyal voters, like the New Deal Coalition. This is why the GOP must stop Health Care (aka the candy) before it reaches the mouth of the voter.
They don't want the population to become dependent on another program that will result on higher taxes on the wealthy, and their donors don't want to lose control of the current over-priced system.
ObamaCare is a problem
only because it might work too well for the voter . . .like most social programs that cannot be killed.
This is why they have to convince the idiot voter that Obama is coming for grandma. They need to kill it before the candy reaches the people -- or it will be a tax burden on them forever.