Making Healthcare a 2024 Election Issue

Realizing abortion is a losing issue, Republicans are working to make healthcare a 2024 election issue. They may be on to something, because rising health care costs are a sore point for voters. But just as before, the devil is in the details, and the claims and promises misleading.

I’ve been writing about healthcare policy for years and certainly agree that the cost of U.S. healthcare is out of control. For many, it’s not even good healthcare and far from exceptional.

UPDATE (11/16/2024): RFK Jr., Trump’s recent pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is condemned as a “clear and present danger.” Here are 10 of his concerning conspiracy theories and false claims, with details in his own words:

1. Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism.
2. Kennedy falsely called the coronavirus vaccine the ‘deadliest vaccine ever made.’
3. Kennedy promotes raw milk, stem cells and other controversial or debunked medical treatments.
4. Kennedy argues government employees have an interest in ‘mass poisoning’ the American public.
5. Kennedy has falsely linked antidepressants to mass shootings.
6. Kennedy incorrectly suggests AIDS may not be caused by HIV.
7. Kennedy falsely argues children’s gender identity can be impacted by water.
8. Kennedy has falsely touted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as effective covid treatments.
9. Kennedy argued that covid-19 was ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
10. Kennedy claims 5G high-speed wireless network is used to ‘control our behavior’.

For details on each of these claims, read this article in the Washington Post.

New Republican Healthcare Policy

The America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank similar to the Heritage Foundation’s now-toxic Project 2025. AFPI is heavily promoting a new video on social media that features former governor Bobby Jindal attacking Obamacare and promising to replace it. But with what? A Washington Post Fact Checker gave Jindal’s claims and criticism Three Pinocchios, saying they’re misleading. 

While I encourage voters to read WaPo’s analysis, I fear it’s far easier to make disparaging claims than rebut them, giving Republicans a potential advantage. Here are the main claims and some key rebuttal points:

• • CLAIM: “Premiums have increased 80 percent” because of Obamacare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA). 
  • CLAIM: “Total health care cost for a family of four has increased by $12,000 a year.” 
  • These are repurposed talking points from older GOP attacks and are highly misleading.
  • While health insurance costs have risen, they have done so at a slower rate since the ACA was passed into law. 
  • If total costs had continued on the same pre-ACA path, they would now be nearly double the current level.
  • Obamacare’s role in flattening the cost curve and slowing growth is relatively minor, but just as you can’t fully credit the law for reducing prices, neither can you blame it for “massively” increasing them. 
  • The law’s biggest success has been its intended main purpose — reducing the number of Americans without health insurance.

Remember, the ACA was mainly aimed at people who buy insurance in the individual market — a relatively small percentage of the population. It was not really aimed at employer-provided plans, although it did add some required provisions to those plans. Those include capping out-of-pocket costs, prohibiting annual and lifetime limits, covering preventative services at no cost to patients, and preventing denial of coverage due to preexisting health conditions. 

The WaPo analysis goes much deeper than I’ll do, but I think it’s helpful to also know some history leading up to the ACA. With that, you’ll understand why 59% of Americans now prefer it, according to a February poll by KFF, a nonprofit health-policy organization.

Comparing the Candidates on Health Care Policy

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris have distinctly different records and positions on health care. Without yet referring to either Project 2025 or the America First Policy Institute, KFF presented a helpful side-by-side comparison offering a quick way to understand Trump’s presidential record and Harris’ record in the Biden-Harris administration and in previously held public office. The KFF analysis includes 16 topics:

1. Affordable Care Act, 
2. Medicaid, 
3. Medicare, 
4. Abortion, 
5. Contraception, 
6. Maternity Care, 
7. LGBTQ Health, 
8. Gun Violence, 
9. Public Health, 
10. Mental Health, 
11. Global Health, 
12. Health Care Costs, 
13. Prescription Drug Prices, 
14. Opioid Use Disorders, and  
15. Immigrant Health Coverage. 

Reason for Optimism

I fear public opinions could change with the false claims and misleading info spewing from conservative think-tanks, especially among low-information or single-issue voters. But Republicans tried once to replace the ACA and failed. Under President Trump’s administration, they introduced an American Health Care ACT (AHCA) that went down in flames when Senator John McCain returned from brain surgery to give his famous “thumbs down” vote. Here’s a 3:50 recap of that event one year afterwards.

McCain said he supported replacing Obamacare but objected to the highly partisan skinny repeal, which “offered no replacement to actually reform our health care system and deliver affordable, quality health care to our citizens.”

Here at Modern Health Talk, I’ve long called for Reengineering U.S. Healthcare if we can avoid the politics, but to do that we must ask the right questions and get the objectives and incentives right. That also means getting the corrupting influence of big money out and getting support from all three branches of government. 

There’s reason to worry about today’s U.S. Supreme Court but also space for optimism. The politically appointed justices with life terms and no accountability already had a chance to kill the ACA, but instead they only wounded it when declaring the insurance mandate unconstitutional.

From personal experience, I learned a lot about lobbying and Extreme Democracy when twice being instrumental in grass-roots efforts that won huge legislative wins. Each time, a small but organized group defeated powerful lobbyists from some of the nation’s largest corporations. In one case a dozen activist techies defeated an AT&T-sponsored bill that would have prevented municipalities from offering free Wi-Fi services. In another case, I cofounded a nonprofit to get an abusive state agency abolished outright. With just two guys and no outside funding, we represented interests of homebuyers and defeated the Texas Association of Home Builders. 

RELATED ARTICLES

• Republican Sabotage of Our Health Care System
• ACA Anniversary and History
• American Health Care Act, a Summary & UPDATE
• People Like Obamacare – The ACA is hard to Repeal. Here’s why. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wayne Caswell is the Founding Editor of Modern Health Talk, an altruistic website and blog with hundreds of published articles on healthcare policy, technologies, and solutions for independent living. It started in March 2011 as a nonprofit effort to share the unique perspectives of a retired IBM technologist, market strategist, digital home consultant, futurist, and consumer advocate.