Against all odds, Democrats seemed to have gained the upper hand in the conflict over the government shutdown, in part by sticking relentlessly to their demand that enhanced subsidies for buying health insurance on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) exchanges be extended.
In response, Republicans are insisting — with increasing volume almost tipping into anger — that they very much care about Americans’ access to healthcare, all evidence to the contrary. Just witness the passion in Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s voice as he explained last week that “Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare. Republicans are the party working around the clock every day to fix healthcare.”
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com
Mike Johnson: "Let me look right into the camera and tell you very clearly: Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare. Republicans are the party working around the clock everyday to fix healthcare. This is not talking points for us: we've done it."
Johnson elaborated yesterday on Fox News Sunday, saying that “we have hundreds of ideas literally on the table to fix healthcare, to make it more affordable for the American people, to make access more available and to increase the quality of care.” Hundreds of ideas! That must be some table, where Republican members of Congress work late into the night poring over the arcane details of healthcare policy to flesh out their creative and complex ideas.
The cynical may say — and with good reason — that this is utter baloney. But there is another, even more disturbing possibility: What if Republicans really do care about healthcare, and really are going to do something about it at long last? This shutdown fight could be the beginning of something very, very bad.
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Republicans have never really cared about healthcare
About a decade ago, when Barack Obama was still president, I had a friendly chat with a conservative think-tanker in the green room at C-SPAN about the ongoing battles over the Affordable Care Act. Though it was signed into law in 2010, Republicans never stopped saying they wanted to “repeal and replace” it, and they staged at least 70 symbolic votes to do so.
Nevertheless, I suggested to my counterpart, Republicans seemed to hate having to talk about healthcare at all. It just isn’t something that interests them, or that they care much about. They’re much more motivated by taxes, immigration, military policy — almost anything else. They certainly don’t like government health insurance programs and would be happy to see them cut or eliminated, but having to wade into the intricate healthcare policy weeds? Dullsville. They’d rather the issue just went away.
My new conservative friend admitted that my assessment was correct. But what could they do? Obama forced it on them.
