As GOP presidential nominee
Mitt Romney has caught up to President Obama in the national
election polls, he’s also narrowed the gap between himself and the
president on health care issues. Obama still leads Romney on all
health care questions asked in a new survey released by the Kaiser
Family Foundation: By at least five points, respondents still say
they trust the president to do a better job on women’s health
issues, on determining the future of ObamaCare, on lowering the
cost of health care, and on managing the future of Medicaid and
Medicare.

But as Kaiser Health News
points out, Obama’s advantage on the Medicare question has
shrunk dramatically in recent weeks. In September, Obama led Romney
by 16 points. Now he leads his GOP rival by just five points, which
is not a statistically significant difference in the poll.

This isn’t exactly great news for Romney, who is still losing in
all the polled categories. But it’s not great news for Obama
either. And it suggests that warnings about the impossibility of
winning on an entitlement reform platform might be overstated.
Maybe proposing to overhaul Medicare isn’t as toxic to a
presidential campaign as many once believed? 

KHN notes that
polls show that voters still oppose Romney’s (maddeningly vague)
plan to transform Medicare into a voucher-style premium support
system. And yet amongst seniors in the swing state of Florida, that
hasn’t been enough to turn support against the GOP candidate. As
The Wall Street Journal
reports, “polls now show Mr. Romney leading among the state’s
elderly voters by 6% to 12%—a sign he may be weathering reasonably
well the charges by Democrats that he and running mate Paul Ryan
would undermine Medicare. Among all voters in Florida, Mr. Romney
leads Mr. Obama by an average of less than 2%.”

There are a number of possible lessons to draw from this. One is
that the GOP’s
frustrating attacks on Obama for reducing Medicare spending as
part of ObamaCare might have worked. Another is that Medicare may
be declining in salience as an issue. Another is that when voters
decide they might like someone for president, there are carryover
effects : As potential voters warm to the idea of Romney as
president, they’re also warming to the general idea of him making
decisions about Medicare, even if they don’t like the particular
plan he’s proposed.

But here’s what I’d say the two most important takeaways are.
First, proposing Medicare reform is not necessarily a campaign
killer, even if the specific plan doesn’t poll particularly well.
It’s even possible to win seniors in swing states by a pretty wide
margin with such a plan. Second, public opinion can and does
change, sometimes rapidly, about big issues like Medicare where
many assume that opinions are intractable. Voters may not be ready
to give the thumbs up to a premium-support style Medicare reform
plan. But they just might be ready to vote for a president who has
proposed one.