Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.
In response to Democrats highlighting GOP opposition to Affordable Care Act subsidies on which millions of Americans rely, Republicans have once again been forced to revisit their approach to health care.
The current crisis
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin argued that losing critical health care subsidies is not a serious issue, even as families have been experiencing sticker shock as their premiums increase.
“I don't think this is going to be any kind of gut-wrenching problem if these enhanced subsidies just go away. We'll probably have to weather the lies told by the Democrats. Democrats say all sorts of things that are untrue,” he told CNBC.
Meanwhile, failed presidential candidate and current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned whether people even need comprehensive coverage.
“Most people, particularly under 50, what they really need is a catastrophic plan that’s affordable, where then they can pay whatever they’re doing out of a health savings account,” he argued.
DeSantis is a Navy veteran and has access to comprehensive coverage for himself and his family, by the way.
In Congress, the subsidies have become a pivotal issue in the ongoing government shutdown. Republicans have refused to pass legislation that would fund the vital program, forcing a shutdown that has rippled through the economy.
The right always hated health care
Opposition to health care legislation runs deep within the Republican Party, which has opposed efforts to help families for decades.
Back in the early 1960s, when he was transitioning from actor to politician, Ronald Reagan made a recording that was sent out across the country warning about the dangers of “socialized medicine.”
Before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed popular programs like Medicaid and Medicare into law as part of his “Great Society” policies, Reagan and company said that health care would be used to open the door to communism.
Of course, that never happened.
A little more than 30 years later, the Clinton administration made a push for health care reform. The right railed against the plan, which was shepherded by first lady Hillary Clinton, ultimately killing reform for more than a decade.
Still fighting in the 21st century
It took the crisis of the Great Recession and the overwhelming victory of President Barack Obama to make health care reform a possibility in 2009. The right mounted what was arguably its biggest smear campaign to frame the plan—which was modeled after Republican ideas executed in Massachusetts—as a socialist takeover of the health care system.
The right-wing talking point that the legislation would create “death panels” of bureaucrats cutting off health care was dubbed “lie of the year” by PolitiFact that year. Ultimately, the campaign was unsuccessful, and Obama signed the Affordable Care Act—which the right mocked as “Obamacare,” in 2010.
After that, the right failed to challenge the legislation all the way to the Supreme Court, spending many of the following years voting over and over again in Congress to repeal the bill.
In the heat of the fight over the ACA, conservative voters showed where they stood. In a 2011 Tea Party debate with presidential candidates, audience members cheered on the notion that, instead of providing government-funded health care to a sick patient, it would be preferable to just “let him die.”
But when the right wasn’t fighting against insurance reform and comprehensive coverage, they were attacking health care in other venues.
For example, the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona slammed Democrats for supporting abortion care when the “life of the mother” is at risk, using air quotes to sarcastically repeat the phrase during a debate against Obama in 2008.
More recently, the Trump administration has pursued numerous cuts and changes to health care for veterans. And ahead of the passage of health care cuts in the GOP’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa argued in May that it didn’t matter if people lose their health care because “we all are going to die.”
Conservatives have no health care plans
Right-wing figures like Trump have spent nearly a decade promising a policy solution to health care issues. Trump first promised a health care plan that would provide “insurance for everybody” back in January 2017. It still hasn’t happened.
What the right refuses to acknowledge is that the public—including many Republicans—backs government-supported health care. Programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare have significant support.
It turns out that people would prefer to see doctors and have access to medication instead of relying on the “free” market and the profit-driven whims of the insurance industry.
Conservatives have devoted themselves to destroying and undermining government assistance on health care while failing to provide any real alternative.
The right supports a world where health care is so nonexistent that the alternative is sickness, suffering, and death—and the quicker the better.
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