Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is digging in his heels on politically sensitive Medicare legislation while taking a hands-off approach to a stalled housing-rescue bill.

The Kentucky Republican on Monday stood by his party’s Senate opposition to a Medicare bill that House Republicans overwhelmingly supported. He was less firm on a Republican amendment that has tripped up the chamber’s most aggressive response to the mortgage crisis, diverting questions without signaling his own effort to bring about a resolution.

The two bills will likely pass before the August recess, which Republicans hope will give them enough time to make their case that the Democratic majority that controls the floor of the Senate is to blame for delayed action. And at a time of record-high oil prices, they hope voters will take their anger out at Democrats at the polls for soaring gas prices as public sentiment shifts toward domestic production.

McConnell said Monday that Democrats were playing political games by not supporting a month-long extension to avert the 11 percent cut in reimbursement payments for physicians operating under the Medicare program. The fight in Congress centers on how to pay for the bill.

Democratic legislation passed the House, 355-59, on June 24, but stalled in the Senate by one vote on June 26. After the vote, McConnell justified his party’s opposition, noting that President Bush had threatened to veto the bill.

Facing reporters in his first day back since the recess, McConnell did not back off from his stance, criticizing the Democrats for not seeking bipartisan consensus to avert the doctors’ cuts.

“At the risk of being redundant, we’d like to get a result here. And a vetoed a bill does not produce a timely result,” said McConnell, who could face a tough reelection in November. “And I think sort of playing political games with positions and others who may have an interest in it, is not a way to get a result. It strikes me that a vetoed bill is not a result.”

The housing bill, which would expand a federal insurance program for struggling borrowers to $300 billion, represents Congress’s most aggressive response to the mortgage crisis that has crippled the U.S. economy.

But it has been stalled because of a push by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) to add a package of expiring tax incentives to boost renewable-energy use. Democrats don’t want to add the tax breaks to the bill, saying that would doom it in the House. They plan to circumvent the amendment by scheduling several time-consuming procedural votes before anticipated passage later this month.

McConnell didn’t take as firm of a position on the fight on the housing bill, which he and a majority of his caucus supports.

“You have to talk to Sen. Ensign about it — I know he feels strongly about it,” McConnell said.

Sarah Binder, a Senate expert at the Brookings Institution, said that the GOP is “probably right” that Democrats would take the blame for failing to govern since they control the majority. She said that stalling those two bills could play well with conservative voters as well, who tend to favor less government regulation.

But, she said, there are risks.

“The risk is that Senate Republicans may alienate independents whose votes are essential in swing states to re-elect GOP incumbents,” Binder said. “The risk is greatest for the housing measure, as the fallout from the mortgage and financial crisis does not fall neatly on red/blue lines.”

The Bush administration has tried to give the GOP cover by promising to delay the processing of new claims under Medicare until July 15. Under McConnell’s leadership, the GOP successfully blocked the House-passed bill by one vote last month, infuriating the American Medical Association, which lobbed a flurry of attack ads against the GOP during last week’s recess.

Many Republicans were forced to defend their votes at length. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) held a conference call with local reporters after the vote, accusing Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for playing politics and later asking President Bush to bring Congress back into session to finalize the bill.

Specter suggested to The Hill on Monday that the AMA could see its priorities fall by the wayside because of its attacks (see related story, Page 1).

While a majority of the most vulnerable Republicans facing reelection voted for advancing the Medicare bills, others up for reelection felt the heat.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is favored in his reelection bid, fired off a letter to physicians groups saying that Democrats were avoiding negotiating a long-term fix to the persistent issue of doctors’ cuts, and instead were choosing to engage in a political fight.

“Instead, they have chosen a tactic of ignore and delay in order to make needed relief to physicians and beneficiaries a political battle,” Cornyn said of Democrats.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who faces a tough battle to defend his seat, called the doctor groups’ campaign “misinformation.”

At Monday’s briefing, McConnell stayed on message, repeatedly saying his goal was to “get a result” on the Medicare issue.

But Democrats are intensifying the attacks.

“The stakes are too high for inaction,” Reid said, calling for Republicans to end their “pointless obstruction” of Medicare and housing bills.