Republican Congressman Jen Kiggans (VA) laid out the problem and in the process exposed an all too typical Republican timidity:
We run on this every time, there’s not an election that comes up where we don’t get beat up on healthcare[.]
Republicans far too routinely cower away from directly addressing healthcare, identifying who’s responsible for the problem, or what to do about it.
Some party elders now say Republicans’ best strategy might now be to avoid the issue altogether.
They’ve had this hide-under-their-desks posture ever since their one serious attempt at health care coverage reform went down in flames via ex-Senator John McCain’s late night showboating No vote killing a bill that would have rescinded Obamacare and restored the then-status quo ante.
A few days ago, Republicans in the Senate (which the press routinely and dishonestly characterizes as “Republican controlled”) offered a bill that would have redirected expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies to individual taxpayers’ Health Savings Accounts, which the bill also expanded explicitly to accommodate those payments. The bill failed on a cloture vote as the minority Progressive-Democratic Party’s Senators bloc-voted against it (thereby demonstrating that a majority of Senators does not confer on that majority party “Senate control”).
Asides aside, what’s shamefully cowardly is that, both during the Republican proposal’s runup to the vote and since the vote, all of those Republicans have been silent on one Critical Item: the Progressive-Democrats’ constant demand for subsidies for the ACA proves how unaffordable is their health care coverage program and how desperately that program needs reform. True, a few Republicans mentioned that the Progressive-Democrats had designed their subsidies to expire at the end of this month, but those were just occasional afterthoughts in other conversations.
It would be good for Republicans, and it would be good for our nation, if Republicans individually and as a political party—including at the State level as well as national—would but screw their courage to the sticking place, and they’ll not fail—not at health care reform, not at getting elected and reelected, and not at maintaining their majorities.
It’s clear that Obamacare/ACA is an utter failure at making health care coverage affordable—even with those taxpayer-funded subsidies, too many premiums in the government’s health coverage market are sky high, and deductibles and the out-of-pocket costs (even capped) are significant fractions of the incomes that the government defines as poverty-level. It’s also clear that Medicaid is rife with fraud and abuse (and waste, but the other two are the most rampant).
Republicans need to talk about health care loudly, frequently, and in specific terms, naming both the outlandish health coverage expenses and the politician they’re campaigning against who favors those expenses and favors keeping Americans dependent on any government they run. Republicans also need to explain in clear, no uncertain terms, that the cuts to Medicaid and the rules for eligibility that they passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act actually make things better for legitimate Medicaid recipients. Those reforms cut out those ineligible, like illegal aliens in sanctuary States; add income caps to eligibility; and require the able-bodied to work, actively seek work, train for work, or volunteer. Those reforms make more money available for those truly needing Medicaid.
In parallel, Republicans need to push a specific, concrete health coverage reform package that drastically modifies ACA or outright replaces it. This one requires the Chaos Caucus and the entrenched leadership to get off each other’s throats and coalesce around a specific, concrete package.
Republicans have wasted enough time bickering among each other under their collective House/Senate desk.