Republican health policy has changed significantly over the past decade, from an overhaul of entire programs to a focus on targeted changes.
Line spacing: This transition was the deliberate result of a lot of behind-the-scenes work after the collapse of a previous ambitious Republican effort (to repeal and replace the ACA).
- I interviewed Will Dunham, Kevin McCarthy’s deputy director for policy until last fall, about the thinking behind that change. Here are the main takeaways and some of his most enlightening quotes.
1) Abolition and replacement of disasters It triggered a reset of the caucuses on healthcare.
- “After leaving the House and failing the Senate to pass Repeal and Replace, I think Republicans in the House have started to rethink how they talk about health care.”
- “It takes a lot of conversations and a lot of time for members to change the way they think and talk about a broad topic like health. But Republicans say they understand it’s important to the American people. think.”
- “This is a table issue, and one that I don’t think the Republicans want to give to the Democrats.”
2) Republicans deliberately left The focus is on finding individual policy goals from the overarching agenda.
- “They’re not proposing … a 3,000-page bill that swings for the fence, home runs, grand slams, and overhauls the U.S. healthcare system.”
- “Republicans have been talking like that for a long time, but I think what Republicans realized was they were playing on Democratic turf.”
- “It’s a playing field where Republicans are getting away, and they’re looking for singles and doubles.”
3) Target changes ultimately adopted by Health Future Task Force — Republican branch Commitment to America’s Agenda — Designed to be meaningful to voters.
- “They are looking for friction points and offering solutions that reduce the friction points that Americans experience when interacting with the health care system.”
4) No tagline It can be used to sell the agenda, and that’s fine for Republicans.
- “Frankly, targeted reform isn’t as flashy or high-profile as a tagline like a healthcare overhaul — like Medicare for All. [they] Arming Republicans with individual examples of how they have made American life better. ”
- “It is important to tell voters that we understand the problems in the healthcare sector, and we are committed to fixing them in a targeted way.”
5) Looming Medicare Bankruptcy It prevents changes to the program from disappearing from the political discourse, but any change must be a bipartisan effort.
- “The promise also included the words ‘Save Social Security and Medicare.’ I think that’s it.” “
- “We have seen over the past decade that a partisan approach to Medicare reform has yielded no legislative results, and even if one party could enact legislation, the other could I will try to return to
