The GOP's stealth campaign to sabotage your health care
Republicans have the run of government, and could have made any number of fixes to America's busted health-care system. Instead they've chosen to make it much worse.
Chances are good that your health insurance is bad — and getting worse.
If you have ObamaCare, the deductibles and co-pays keep going up, the networks keep getting narrower, and every year you have to go through an incredibly complicated and stressful enrollment process.
If you have employer-based insurance, likely the exact same things are happening, if at a somewhat slower pace.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
And if you're uninsured — well, you don't need me to tell you about that.
Who's fault is this sorry state of affairs? There's plenty of blame to go around, but Republicans are right at the top of the list.
The Trump administration has been deliberately sabotaging the ObamaCare exchanges. Most recently, it announced that it would again slash funding to "navigators," the nonprofits that help people navigate the complicated enrollment process. For 2017 the funding was $62.5 million; now it's down to $10 million. Worse, the navigators will now be directed to recommend that people enroll in crummy, cheap plans — potentially causing an insurance death spiral as the healthy population is creamed off into garbage plans, leaving only sick people in the other insurance pools.
That comes on top of the GOP's evisceration of ObamaCare advertising and outreach and the deletion of "cost-sharing reduction" payments. Ironically, this latter move may have accidentally helped people on the exchanges slightly (due to the policy's janky design), but all these moves have been unquestionably aimed at worsening the quality of coverage on the ObamaCare exchanges.
Now, it is true that ObamaCare was a cramped vision of health policy that is way too complicated and has some rather staggering design errors. Nevertheless, its exchanges and Medicaid expansion have provided coverage to millions of people, and its regulatory structures have helped tens of millions more with employer-based coverage. At every point where Trump's appointees could have chosen to operate the federal bureaucracy to make coverage cheaper and better, they have chosen the opposite.
More fundamentally, Republicans have had the run of all three branches of government for the last year and a half — a rare situation in our antiquated constitutional system. In a democracy, the government is supposed to address the needs of its citizens. There are lots of health-care models that might provide universal coverage — and in a dark sort of advantage, the American health-care system is so terrible that practically every other country that isn't an outright failed state is doing better than us, giving us plenty of models to choose from. All we would need is to copy-paste from somewhere with a demonstrated functioning model — from the public-private mix in Switzerland to Medicare-for-all systems in many countries to the National Health Service in Britain. Heck, you could just draw a country out of a hat, and go with that — it might not be the best option overall, but it's certain to be better than our festering, gangrenous system.
Republicans promised over and over and over again that their alternative to ObamaCare would offer coverage that is both cheaper and better. Paul Ryan said their policy would protect people with pre-existing conditions. Kellyanne Conway promised that Medicaid would be protected, while then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price swore up and down that nobody would be kicked off that program.
In reality, as even a cursory glance at the health-care bill the GOP repeatedly failed to pass last year reveals, Republicans' actual policy preference is to slash social insurance programs (particularly Medicaid) and other health-care subsidies and regulations, causing tremendous suffering and probably hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, so they can cut taxes on rich people. It was only the defection of three Republican senators — swayed by a deluge of constituent calls, many begging not to be killed — that prevented that goal from being achieved.
So if your coverage is bad — if you're paying through the nose for premiums, or your deductible and co-pays are going through the roof, or you're constantly fighting with the insurance company over payments, or getting your treatments denied, or facing 10-fold increases in drug prices, or being balance-billed for more than your annual income — it's Republicans' fault. They run the government, and could have fixed the system. Instead they have chosen consistently and repeatedly to make it worse wherever they can.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
-
The best new music of 2024 by genre
The Week Recommends Outstanding albums, from pop to electro and classical
By The Week UK Published
-
Nine best TV shows of 2024 to binge this Christmas
The Week Recommends From Baby Reindeer and Slow Horses to Rivals and Shogun, here are the critics' favourites
By The Week UK Published
-
Crossword: December 28, 2024
The Week's daily crossword puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
US election: who the billionaires are backing
The Explainer More have endorsed Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, but among the 'ultra-rich' the split is more even
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?
By The Week UK Published
-
Will 'weirdly civil' VP debate move dial in US election?
Today's Big Question 'Diametrically opposed' candidates showed 'a lot of commonality' on some issues, but offered competing visions for America's future and democracy
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
1 of 6 'Trump Train' drivers liable in Biden bus blockade
Speed Read Only one of the accused was found liable in the case concerning the deliberate slowing of a 2020 Biden campaign bus
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published