Republicans' wave of health care woes

The GOP's refusal to deal with Medicaid and rising premiums is reminiscent of the 2006 election cycle.

Republicans seem intent on building a Democratic wave in 2026. With an unpopular president and rising prices, they are hellbent on making the election about health care. Republicans in Washington are insisting that Americans pay exorbitant premium increases, while Republicans in North Carolina are going to stiff Medicaid. Inflicting pain on a large swath of the population tends to be bad politics.

Governor Josh Stein called the legislature back into session to address a short-fall in the Medicaid fund. Republican leaders Phil Berger and Destin Hall responded with a process argument, claiming Stein can’t dictate their calendar. They called it “an unconstitutional attempt to usurp the General Assembly’s authority.” That’s rich coming from the people who have spent the last decade stripping power from the governor and gerrymandering Congressional seats.

This is the same legislature that has failed to pass a budget and now is complaining that the governor is asking them to come back to work. They’re taking their cues from U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who kept the U.S. House of Representatives on vacation for more than a month during the Trump shutdown. As Stein pointed out, they came back to Raleigh to steal a Congressional seat but won’t come back to help North Carolinians who need health care.

I know I’m aging myself, but this seems oddly familiar to me. Back in 2006, the Bush White House and the GOP-led Congress was in disarray. They had botched the response to Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War was dragging out too long, and a series of scandals ensnared Republican Members of Congress. At the same time, health care became the dominant domestic issue with almost 17% of the country uninsured and health care costs skyrocketing, but the GOP refused to act.

Republicans also controlled both Houses of Congress. While the House was up for grabs, the Senate was supposedly out of reach—until it wasn’t. Democrats hammered the GOP on health care, scandals, and incompetence. Congress had few accomplishments and Democrats branded them the “Do-nothing Congress.” Republicans got shellacked in a wave election that set the stage for Barack Obama’s win in 2008.

As the saying goes, history might not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. As we head into the 2026 midterm, the president has approval ratings in the tank. Prices are rising, the Epstein files are dominating the conversation, Congress isn’t doing its job, and now Republicans are ignoring a brewing health care crisis. That’s a recipe for disaster for Republican incumbents.

At least Republicans are standing on principle for once. Unfortunately, their principle is that the government shouldn’t pay for health care for its citizens. Treating health care like any other commodity is not going to work out well for them.

On another note, the Epstein files is getting increasingly fun to watch as new emails drag Trump closer to the late sex trafficker. Conservative commentators are twisting themselves into pretzels making excuses and trying to defend the president. Megyn Kelly has a brand new take. She argues that Epstein wasn’t really a pedophile. He just liked “barely legal” girls, like 15-year-olds. Kelly says that sex with teens is different than sexually abusing five year olds. That’s a hell of a take.

Ben Shapiro blasted Marjory Taylor Greene for sticking to her guns and demanding the release of the Epstein files. He says that Greene just wants to destroy the Trump presidency. Jane Coaston of Crooked Media tweeted, “Followup question: why would releasing the Epstein files, a thing Kash Patel, JD Vance, and a host of other Trump supporting members of the administration demanded in 2024, destroy Trump’s presidency?”

So much schadenfreude. On one hand, Republicans are tearing themselves apart trying to distance themselves from the anti-semites and bigots they’ve allowed to grow in their party. On the other hand, they are contorting themselves to defend the grifter, sexual abuser, habitual liar, and would-be dictator who now leads their party. With health care they are delivering a Democrats a salient positive message heading into the 2026 election cycle.