Op-Ed: The allure of the Republican Party is baffling. Voters will regret falling for it.
My son is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This fall, in his free time, he will be a junior there. He, and countless other young people, may soon be voting for the first time in their lives, choosing candidates for a party whose policies they had no prior knowledge of.
His choice is an issue that’s on my mind, for all the wrong reasons.
The Republicans are now vying for control of the country’s most important governing body. The party’s candidates for president this year have all promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The party’s candidates for governor and senator have all vowed to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. These are the same promises the Affordable Care Act has already made.
In a country where the Affordable Care Act now requires all citizens to have insurance, it’s obvious that it does not repeal or replace the law (a bill is not a repeal, it’s simply the next legislative step).
The Republican Party’s promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act are simply a lie told to voters. This should not come as some shock. After the 2016 election, many Republicans in Congress, including presidential nominees, have called the American health-care system a “failed experiment.”
But the lie is also a lie to the country’s most vulnerable citizens, which is why the GOP’s promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act is not only baffling today, but is also potentially harmful to the country’s future.
While Republicans argue the Affordable Care Act needs “fixing,” we need to consider that there are a lot of things in the American health-care system that need to be fixed. It’s clear that the Affordable Care Act is far more complicated than some Republicans are arguing.
The Republican Party’s promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act are confusing voters, and could have devastating consequences.
Voting for Donald Trump
When the Republican Party’s presidential nominees first began making these promises to voters in the run-up to the 2016 election