Jonathan Chait: “Here’s a piece of Republican rhetoric that used to be ubiquitous but that you never hear anymore: America has the best health-care system in the world.”
“Republican politicians liked this line because it helped them dismiss the idea that the system needed major reform. American health care at its finest offered the most advanced treatments anywhere. Democrats wanted to expand coverage, but why mess with perfection?”
“In Donald Trump’s second term, Republicans haven’t given up their opposition to universal coverage—far from it—but they have mostly stopped singing the praises of American health-care innovation. Indeed, they are taking a meat axe to it, slashing medical-research funding while elevating quacks and charlatans to positions of real power. The resulting synthesis is the worst of all worlds: a system that will lose its ability to develop new cures, while withholding its benefits from even more of the poor and sick.”
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