“They’ve committed political suicide”
The Republicans have always wanted to repeal Obamacare. Unfortunately for them it’s quite popular and necessary so they have never been able to muster enough votes to get it done. But they will not be daunted. They’ve just decided to make it prohibitively expensive. That’ll own the libs, amirite?
This is going to be so popular. These folks really have their fingers on the pulse.
Among the staffers at Democratic campaign committees and super PACs that I spoke with last week, the CDC saga was seen as a component of a larger story that the party could tell about Donald Trump dismantling the health care system. And although part of that story, for some audiences, might end up being about Kennedy—his purges at the CDC, his war on vaccination, his dismantling the FDA—another part, likely more politically potent, would be health care becoming less affordable and less accessible.
Affordability issues are already at the center of the messaging and advertising campaigns for the campaign committees and leading super PACs. Just this weekend, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched a digital ad blaming Trump for jacking up grocery prices and making Labor Day cookouts “ridiculously expensive.” And as I wrote last week, Democratic leaders are also focusing on rising energy prices.
Health care costs will slot in as well. Democrats are already attacking Republicans for passing Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which could leave nearly 12 million Americans newly uninsured and unable to afford basic health care. When Republicans return to D.C., they will face pressure to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies, which were created with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and are set to expire at the end of the year. (The GOP caucus is split over the subsidies, with more conservative members vehemently opposed to what they see as protecting Obamacare.)
“I do think it’s gonna be a health care election, but I think it’s gonna be wrapped into this whole issue of affordability,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care.
“There’s a wicked brew here that is amassing against Republicans, and it’s all self-inflicted,” Woodhouse added. “They’ve committed political suicide.”
They really should commit political suicide. But honestly, I don’t know if it will turn out that way. The news is so chaotic and fragmented, I don’t know if any but those directly affected will know it’s happened.
Right now, I see video clip after video clip of ICE thugs beating and kidnapping people off the streets. They’re deporting hundreds of little children. Business owners are complaining. Immigrant communities are being terrorized. But it doesn’t really seem to be penetrating beyond “tsk, tsk, how awful” just one issue among others. People don’t like it but they aren’t exactly up in arms.
I know that health care is different since it affects everyone in one way or another. But all of these various developments, from the destruction of the biomedical research to anti-vax lunacy and the purge of the CDC to these Obamacare rate hikes are each discrete issues that affect some people directly and only tangentially affect others. Is it enough to motivate voters? I just don’t know.
I guess we’ll see how it unfolds over the next year. Maybe all these things will break through and create the kind of massive emotional resistance it should. But it hasn’t yet.