Democrats have found their version of Obamacare’s “death panels.” It’s Medicare.

Republicans won elections last year demonizing and distorting many of the elements of Obamacare.

Last week, Democrats were thrilled when Kathy Hochul defeated her Republican rival in a special election for a House seat in an upstate New York district that’s been reliably Republican in the past.

Rep. Steve Israel, D-Long Island, who is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, boasted about the win and said Democrats have a new formula to retake the House next year, “Medicare, Medicare, Medicare.”

Democrats might be well served by this strategy, but America will not be.

Democrats have used Rep. Paul Ryan’s controversial budget-reduction plan, which, among many other things, calls for gradually changing Medicare to a voucher program with the federal government paying for people to buy private health insurance. Ryan’s Medicare proposal is controversial, but it is an attempt to control health care costs, which everyone agrees are out of control and bankrupting the federal and state governments as well as threatening budgets of businesses and households.

By using Ryan’s Medicare proposal to club Republicans, Democrats might win elections, but they will not be doing anything to solve the most serious issue facing America.

The health care reform plan passed by Democrats and President Barack Obama expanded coverage, but did nothing to control costs. The White House cut back-room deals with the big health insurance companies, pharmaceutical industry, and the rest of the medical establishment in a political calculation to get a health care bill passed. But it failed to deal with costs, because that would be unpopular.

To deal with health care costs, there must be changes to Medicare and Medicaid. Anyone who is serious about health care — and honest — will admit that real change is necessary.

But Democrats in Washington now see a winning formula, demagogue on Medicare — scare seniors. It’s winning politics, but terrible leadership.

The New York Times noted in an editorial that Bill Clinton warned fellow Democrats that they have to bring down health care costs, in Medicare and elsewhere, if they want to have any credibility on the deficit and the economy.

Republicans were wrong to demagogue Obamacare and make up death panels. There’s plenty to criticize in Obamacare; no need to make things up.

In the special election in upstate New York, Democrats ran a television commercial featuring a man who looked like Ryan, pushing an old woman in a wheelchair — off a cliff.

Democrats, eager to retake the House of Representatives, apparently plan to keep scaring senior citizens and blasting anyone who suggests making changes to Medicare.

Why not? It works.

The tactic predates health care. When Republicans talked about reforming Social Security, Democrats bashed them, saying no changes are necessary.

Unless more than a few people in Washington decide to be leaders, and act like adults and talk to the American people honestly about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — and even the need for broad tax increases — the United States will make no progress on its perennial deficit spending and massive accumulated debt.

With last week’s victory, Democrats now are saying, as Republicans did a year or so earlier, that political wins today are more important than creating a sustainable future for the United States, and taking back the House trumps the financial burdens that continued deficit spending places on our children and grandchildren.

Going forward, voters should ask Democrats for their solutions to our nation’s problems. They should ask Republicans too.

So far, few Republicans, and fewer Democrats, are being honest about what needs to be done to reform entitlement spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Until they get serious, America is in trouble.