WASHINGTON — Republicans swore off trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act after failing to get rid of the law in 2017. The projected insurance coverage losses from that effort eight years ago are similar to what’s at stake under Republicans’ health care agenda this year.
After 2017, Republicans didn’t return to health care reform in a big way during Trump’s first term, and Trump didn’t articulate a coherent plan for health care during his campaign for second term. Near the end, he latched onto Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promise to “Make America Healthy Again,” but that movement is not focused on insurance reforms.
Republicans ended up proposing Medicaid cuts because they needed a way to partially pay for Trump’s true legislative agenda — large tax cuts — and Trump had already ruled out making cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Trump wants to make his 2017 tax cuts, which expire this year, permanent and enact new tax cuts. The tax portion of House Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill would cost $3.7 trillion over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
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