Photo illustration (Roxanne Cooper/Mid-Journey)
For almost a month, I have been limping around my apartment, thinking this has got to be a metaphor for something. It's from one of those household injuries. I missed a step going down the stairs, landed on my foot with all my weight, and popped a calf muscle*. The first thing I thought of was the pain. The second thing: Oh, Jesus, I don't have health insurance.
Like I said, a metaphor. Lots of people are like me. According to the Times, as much as 20 percent of Americans who were enrolled in their state's Obamacare exchanges have dropped out. The percentage is expected to get bigger by the end of the year, some analysts say. It's not because of anything we did. It's because of what the president and the Republicans did.
Or rather didn't do, which is to say, they didn't care. They knew last autumn that premiums were going to double, triple and even quadruple. They knew their own people would suffer. Still they did nothing. The result is going to be more than lost Obamacare enrollees. It's going to be higher insurance premiums for everyone, as the risk pool gets smaller and sicker.
Adding insult to injury (in my case, literally) are the endless allegations of healthcare fraud. Somehow, it's a good thing that me and 1.2 million other Americans have dropped out, because (I'm guessing here) we're scammers. The idea appears to be (again, guessing) that I was getting something for nothing. That tells you that the Republicans have no idea what they are talking about, and how detached they are from the lives of ordinary Americans.
Obamacare enrollees can't commit fraud. First, because we pay up front, out of our own pockets. Second, because we pay on the back end if we don't pay enough up front. We have to guess how much we are going to earn for the year. At tax time, the IRS crunches the numbers. The amount owed can be large if we miscalculate (if we earn more than expected). Believe me when I say the pain of that experience makes you obey every letter of the law.
The Republicans refused to renew federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that were expanded during the COVID pandemic. Those subsidies cushioned the blow of ever-rising health insurance premiums. Once they expired at the end of last year, premiums soared and more than a million people dropped out. However, that's only the most recent development.
Less well-known is the fact that the Republicans are responsible two times over. Once for failing to renew those subsidies. Twice for causing premiums to soar. In 2017, they repealed what was known as Obamacare's "individual mandate," a small tax intended to widen and deepen the risk pool. The tax was working. Costs were going down. From the moment the mandate was repealed, however, costs began rising again to reach their current levels.
Beyond the GOP's carelessness and gaslighting, I guess what bugs me most is their scapegoating. Donald Trump and the Republicans are complicit in the failing state of the American healthcare system yet they're always accusing some poor bastard who cleans toilets for a living. Despite federal law explicitly blocking non-citizens from receiving government assistance, they blame "illegals" for a crisis that they themselves created.
The Republicans do this wholesale. Name a current social problem in America and they will tell you the cause is "illegals." The whole truth, however, is almost certainly the opposite.
- "Illegals" didn't take away anyone's health insurance through their negligence.
- They didn't impose illegal taxes (i.e., tariffs).
- They didn't extract wealth and raise income taxes (i.e., the One Big Beautiful Bill Act).
- They didn't start an illegal war.
- They didn't send gas prices soaring.
- They didn't spike the cost of groceries.
- They didn't bring the American economy to the brink of recession.
The essential message beneath all the rhetoric used by Trump and the Republicans is that the "illegals" are taking something from you, especially your shot at the American dream.
They scapegoat because it works. In America, it often doesn't matter that the Republicans reveal their ignorance of healthcare policy. It often doesn't matter that they expose their detachment from the lives of ordinary Americans. What matters isn't leadership but more often a collective desire to punch down on people who are on the margins of society and who, they believe, deserve violence. Trump's campaigns were a consequence-free chance to indulge that desire. They were vacations from the normal moral constraints of society. That Trump supporters are now facing consequences doesn't change the fact that they had fun.
There is new debate among liberals and Democrats about the need for a new New Deal. In exchange for normal people working hard and playing by the rules, the government promises to create and maintain conditions so that anyone can manifest his or her destiny. That's a welcomed debate, but I think it's already too abstract. Liberals and Democrats spend a lot of time talking about the problems—low wages, high inflation, scarce housing, inaccessible health insurance—but not nearly equivalent time spelling out who is doing what to whom.
Me and 1.2 million former Obamacare enrollees were not priced out due to faceless economic forces. We were priced out systematically by a party whose goals are protecting insurance profits as well as the power of employers to control their workers. Obamacare aims to manifest the American dream. By sabotaging it, the Republicans sabotage the dream.
Trump and his party always spell out who is doing what to whom. They say "illegals" stop ordinary Americans from manifesting their destinies. Immigrants are doing no such thing, but it's not enough for liberals and Democrats to say so. We should tell the same story but in reverse. Everyone can see their dreams come true—if the Republicans get out of the way.