How to Debunk Republicans’ Shutdown Talking Points
Their main argument is about health care, and it shows how desperate they are to dodge blame when prices spike for millions of Americans.
REPUBLICANS ARE PROJECTING LOTS of confidence about the government shutdown that’s likely to start Wednesday, once the current authorization for spending federal money runs out. But there are a few good reasons to think they are too confident about how the politics of the fight will turn out.
At the top of the list is a truly preposterous argument they’ve begun to roll out in their defense.
It’s an argument about funding for health care, which is at the center of the shutdown fight. To hear Republicans tell it, Democrats are siding with the big, bad insurance industry; the Democrats’ central demand is that the federal government extend a temporary, Biden-era program that subsidizes private insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans.
The Republican argument makes no sense if you understand what’s really at stake in this fight, or know anything about the history of health care reform in America. Even so, it’s worth debunking—partly because of how it fits into the broader effort by the GOP to recast itself as being on the side of the little guy, and partly because it just might be convincing to some people.