Health insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans are just weeks away from significantly increasing in cost, and Republicans have yet to agree on a fix that doesn't include extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits. One longtime Republican strategist recently offered a reason why the issue continues to confound his party.
During a Tuesday segment on MS NOW, Stuart Stevens – who was a senior advisor to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney – acknowledged that healthcare was a significant hurdle for Republicans, who have so far failed to repeal the ACA or present an alternative to make health insurance more affordable for their constituents. And he argued that this is dangerous for the GOP given that red states are disproportionately reliant on the ACA tax credits set to expire at the end of this year.
MS NOW host Katy Tur asked Stevens why healthcare is the "one stubborn issue where Republicans don't want to change," and displayed a map that showed how predominantly Republican states across the Deep South have the highest rates of residents who use the ACA exchanges to buy health insurance plans.
"I don't reallyunderstand why Republicansdon't want this. Theirconstituents need it," Tur said. "Do they want it? Because wehaven't seen a plan. We've neverseen a real substantive planfrom Republicans."
"Healthcare is one of the greatfailures in American sociallife, along with guns andimmigration. They take somebipartisan support to do this,which is incapable now," Stevens said. "There's something sort ofgenetically in ...that hard MAGA group, thatanything that Obama was for, we're against. And this doesn'tmake sense."
"More of thesepeople are Republican votersthan not. There's 22 millionpeople out there who aregetting these subsidies. Theycut these. It makes nopolitical sense, but there'snot any sort of intellectualheart of the Republican Partyto propose an alternative," he continued. "... There's justnothing there. It's part of the complete collapse of the Republican Party and the conservative movement."
Some Republicans, like retiring Rep, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), have called on the GOP to either extend the ACA tax credits or to quickly propose an alternative to replace it. President Donald Trump recently suggested he'd be in favor of a two-year extension of the ACA credits, though Republicans have reportedly "expressed outrage at being left out" of the conversation and are bucking the administration.
Watch the segment below: