No, Trump and Republicans Will Not ‘Fix’ Obamacare
Renewed Republican vows to “fix” the Affordable Care Act don’t even rise to the level of bad jokes.
First, a note about a Substack Live I’m hosting TODAY: Join me as I speak with former ABC News journalist Terry Moran, on Thursday at 2 pm EST / 7 pm GMT on Substack. We’ll have a timely conversation about attacks on journalism and the corporate media’s approach to the second Trump era. We’ll take your questions too.
When I joined the Wall Street Journal in 1991, a Republican pollster offered me an insight: the national political issue to watch was healthcare.
He proved prescient. Two years later, the issue dominated the early presidency of Bill Clinton, who declared healthcare “a right, not a privilege.” Fierce Republican opposition killed his health plan, but Democrats never gave up.
And neither have Republicans. Then and now, the GOP has clung to the same basic formula: you get whatever healthcare you can pay for.
That’s why renewed Republican vows to “fix” the Affordable Care Act don’t even rise to the level of bad jokes. They’re not trying to fix anything. They’re trying to conceal their unpopular views from Americans who need help, many of them MAGA loyalists.