Senate Republicans offered a meager salve by promising to hold a vote on the ACA
While I wish Chuck Schumer would step down, I don’t engage in arguments about the Democrats because the recent shutdown was caused by Republicans, who rushed passage of a hastily-written “Big Ugly Bill” with massive cuts to both food and health care benefits. Those cuts were added to finance tax breaks for billionaires and large corporations.
In negotiating the reopening Senate Republicans offered a meager salve by promising to hold a vote on the ACA. How generous, coming from a party whose leader promised universal coverage and lower health care costs back in 2016. During Trump’s first term Republicans voted over 70 times to repeal the ACA, failed every time and never provided their promised replacement. After suffering through the longest shutdown in our country’s history, we’re still waiting. (Elephants have far shorter gestation periods.)
But one result of the Republicans’ refusal to negotiate and their disdain for the ACA is they bear the onus to provide an actual plan and to do so in a timely fashion, because their Big Ugly Bill results in people losing health insurance by year-end. When asked about his ACA replacement in September 2024 Trump said he had a “concept of a plan.” That was not a true statement. All he had then, and all Republicans have now, is a con.
Our job is to keep holding Republicans to account and demanding to see their plan. It’s time for Republicans to extend current ACA tax credits and negotiate seriously with Democrats.
Sue Ravenscroft
Ames
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Senate Republicans offered a meager salve by promising to hold a vote on the ACA | Letters
Reporting by Ames Tribune / Ames Tribune
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