It wasn’t that long ago when health care was one of the most important issues in American politics. It was at the heart of the fundamental conflict between the two parties: whether the government should tax, spend and regulate to redistribute wealth and help working people.
Nowadays? Health care hasn’t been front and center for years. In the final New York Times/Siena poll of the 2024 campaign, less than 1 percent of voters said health care was the most important issue to their vote. To the extent there’s a political battle over health care today, it’s mostly because Democrats forced a government shutdown over it.
That’s not to say there haven’t been major developments in health policy. The Republicans’ spending bill this summer derived most of its savings through health care cuts. And an expiration of Obamacare subsidies will affect millions of people.
These developments have laid the groundwork for the Democrats to force a shutdown over health care, and they may ultimately benefit from it politically. But if you want to understand the depth of the challenge facing them in the Trump era, it’s telling that the party needed to use its leverage and force a shutdown in order for health care to capture any significant attention.
After all, health care is one of the Democratic Party’s bread-and-butter issues. Voters say they prefer Democrats over Republicans to handle it and, for good measure, President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut Medicaid, is deeply unpopular. In the years ahead, millions are projected to lose insurance, and insurance premiums are expected to rise. This is the kind of political fight that the Democratic Party was built to fight and win.
But in some fundamental sense, this is not what American politics is about anymore, and that’s been to the Democrats’ detriment. Ever since Mr. Trump came down the escalator, the basic political conflict between the two parties has changed to something very different than the one that put health care at the fore.
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The post Democrats Play the Hits on Health Care. Why Fewer People Are Listening. appeared first on New York Times.
