Obamacare Was Never Affordable: Republicans Must Stop Pretending
Twelve years ago this week the federal government shut down over a fight that should have mattered more than any budget squabble: Obamacare.
In 2013 Senate conservatives led by Ted Cruz and Mike Lee refused to fund President Obama’s budget unless the law’s worst provisions were removed. They warned it would crush Americans with skyrocketing premiums and limited choice.
Instead of begging Democrats for a short-term continuing resolution, Republicans should force the debate they’ve been avoiding.
They were right, and watching those predictions come true still stings. Democrats stayed disciplined on health care while Republicans acted as if the problem didn’t exist.
Back then Republicans actually had leverage: they controlled the House and could have funded government without Obamacare. The rollout was a mess, the website collapsed, and millions were losing coverage.
Voters punished Democrats for the law and state-level power shifted away from them, while costs were already climbing fast. Premiums jumped 47% in the first year alone.
Still, GOP leaders undercut the effort. After Cruz’s 21-hour filibuster demanding a defund vote, the Republican establishment turned its fire inward.
John McCain scolded Cruz from the Senate floor for comparing the fight to World War II and calling it a “great disservice” to veterans. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed the strategy as “not a smart play.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned against risking a shutdown “doomed to fail.”
Instead of hammering Democrats for creating unaffordable health care, the GOP obsessed over process. The pressure worked: on October 17, Republicans surrendered unconditionally and Obamacare became untouchable.
At the time, I wrote:
If we are resigned to letting go of the Obamacare fight in the budget, there is no way it will ever be repealed, even partially repealed. By 2017 … there will be over 30 million people either willingly or unwillingly dependent on Obamacare.
Even if it’s barely workable, it will be the only care they have. We cannot repeal it.
That prediction proved accurate.
Twelve years later, after winning full control of government, Republicans still could not repeal the law. Now even with new levers, they struggle to stop President Biden’s expansion of it.
On paper Democrats should be the weaker side today: they control no chamber of Congress yet threaten a shutdown to preserve subsidies no one voted for.
Instead they have framed the debate around the cost of health care, the problem the law itself created. Republicans’ silence only amplifies the lie.
Democrats are betting voters forget why premiums exploded and why subsidies now cover nearly everyone. They count on a GOP that can’t plainly say: Obamacare made health care unaffordable and helped fuel inflation that strangles families.
Even the Washington Post recently admitted in an editorial that “the real problem is that the Affordable Care Act was never actually affordable.”
Republicans have the opportunity they wasted a decade ago. With control of executive and legislative branches they can push real repeal and market-based reform.
They can remind Americans that we’re paying Cadillac prices for what looks like catastrophe coverage: massive deductibles, high denial rates, and bloated insurer plans cushioned by federal subsidy.
Expose the system for what it is: a cartel pretending to be compassion. Don’t beg for temporary patches that cement the status quo.
Twelve years ago Republicans said they lacked leverage; today Democrats have none but still complain about costs they helped create. That is a political reality the GOP needs to use.
This is a chance to rewrite health care policy, not tinker around the edges.
