This article originally appeared at Truthout here.
‘The GOP is slashing health care funding at the federal level. . .Democrats’ tack to the right on health care is both morally wrong and politically shortsighted — polls have shown time and time again that the majority of Americans actually support universal health care.’
As congressional Republicans muscle forward a budget bill that would strip health care away from millions of Americans, Democrats have been united in their formal opposition: No cuts to Medicaid, no cuts to SNAP, and no work eligibility requirements.
“Our message is extremely simple: Care, not cuts,” said Pennsylvania State Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa at a rally of state legislators in Harrisburg on June 2. Last month, the country’s 23 Democratic governors released a joint statement decrying the proposed cuts, writing, “As governors, we stand united against any attempt to gut these critical programs that keep our country’s kids, seniors, and veterans healthy and safe — and we invite our Republican colleagues to join us.”
Democrats are correct to fight back against Donald Trump’s austerity agenda, which would fund tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of working families, disabled people, and seniors. But attempts to undermine taxpayer-funded health care aren’t only coming from the right. But anyone truly concerned about the latest round of GOP attacks must go beyond playing simple defense and boldly advocate for what most countries around the world already have: free and universal health care.
In the budget bill, Republicans have proposed slashing health care spending by at least $715 billion, allowing Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire, and implementing work requirements for Medicaid eligibility. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 16 million people would lose their health insurance by 2034 if Republicans’ proposed budget becomes law, and University of Pennsylvania researchers estimate that the losses would lead to 51,000 more people dying annually.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom — widely considered a Democratic frontrunner for the 2028 presidential race — has been a prominent critic of the GOP’s Medicaid cuts. “If Republicans move this extreme MAGA proposal forward, millions will lose coverage, hospitals will close, and safety nets could collapse under the weight,” Newsom said in a statement. “We must sound the alarm because the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
But in his home state, Newsom has sung a different tune. After running for governor on a universal health care platform in 2018, Newsom expanded coverage in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, to undocumented immigrants last year. Now, he has already proposed reversing course, unveiling a budget last month that would cut undocumented adults out of that same program in 2026. This month, Newsom presented another idea for reducing state health care costs: a $2,000 asset test for disabled and elderly Medi-Cal recipients. This means that, to qualify for coverage, an individual would have to have less than $2,000 on hand in cash, savings, or checking accounts.
Newsom raised California Medi-Cal’s asset limit to $130,000 per person in 2022 and abolished it entirely last year, leading to an uptick in enrollment by Californians aged 65 and older. Reinstating a $2,000 asset test would mean that vulnerable people would have to live with zero financial cushion — no matter how low their monthly income — in order to qualify for crucial health coverage. A single medical bill can run more than $2,000, and Medi-Cal already doesn’t cover the long-term care services that disabled and elderly people often need, including assisted living and in-home care. What’s more, the initial $2,000 threshold was set in 1989, when the cost of living was far lower than it is today: In 1990, the median rent in California was $620, compared to roughly $2,800 in 2024. In other words, one month of rent could exceed the proposed limit.
Low-income disabled Californians have expressed fears that they would no longer be able to afford in-home caretakers if they were forced to give up their savings to meet the new asset requirements. “It’s draconian — $2,000 is no safety net for people,” Kim Selfon, an attorney in Los Angeles, told CalMatters.
In a recent segment, NPR analysts speculated that Newsom is “shifting to the center” to tee up a 2028 presidential run. That framing isn’t entirely correct — Newsom has long been a corporate-friendly centrist — but it’s true that his Medi-Cal rollbacks echo the general direction of the Democratic Party. As I reported last August, the Democratic Party removed mention of a universal public health option from its 2024 platform — a shift from its messaging four years prior, which stated a goal of “achieving universal, affordable, quality health care.” While Joe Biden promised a public option on the campaign trail in 2020, he stopped advocating for it after that December. In 2021, New York Democratic leaders blocked a vote on a bill that would have created a universal single-payer health care system in the state, even though it had the support from the majority of lawmakers. A similar bill was reintroduced in the state Senate this January, but it has not moved forward.
Another state Democratic governor recently made headlines for his unfriendly stance to robust and equitable health care access. On May 29, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a bipartisan bill, passed unanimously by the state legislature, that would’ve banned surprise ambulance billing. (When Biden banned surprise medical bills in 2022, ground ambulance services were notably exempt.)
Democrats’ tack to the right on health care is both morally wrong and politically shortsighted — polls have shown time and time again that the majority of Americans actually support universal health care. Republicans know that attacks on Medicaid are unpopular: While Trump previously promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he has since tried to rewrite that history. Trump and the GOP have studiously avoided “repeal-and-replace” rhetoric when discussing the current budget package, instead opting to focus on the Medicaid cuts as targeting fraud and abuse. But make no mistake: Republicans are playing their same old game of gutting public health insurance, just with new window dressing.
Abandoning a public commitment to universal health care did not help the Democrats win the 2024 election. It will not help them in 2028. All it does is leave more and more Americans unhealthy, sick, and dead — because when the center shifts right, so does everybody else.
Schuyler Mitchell is a writer, editor and fact-checker from North Carolina, currently based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The Intercept, The Baffler, Labor Notes, Los Angeles Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her on X: @schuy_ler
