No talk of Obamacare. Or abortion.
At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, where delegates formally nominated Donald Trump as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee, health care issues received little attention from the first-hour speakers.
The silence is surprising given that health care makes up the largest chunk of the federal budget, nearly $2 trillion, as well as 17% of US economic output.
It also stands in stark contrast to the GOP’s priorities when it first nominated Trump.
In 2016, the last time Republicans gathered en masse for a presidential convention, repealing the Affordable Care Act was a favorite topic. That’s how the coup happened Roe v. Wade and its constitutional protections for abortion.
The change in tone reflects Trump’s political sensibilities. The failed attempt under the former president to repeal Obamacare in 2017 contributed to the GOP’s landslide defeat in the 2018 congressional elections, and the law now enjoys widespread support. Abortion, too, has become a treacherous issue for Republicans ever since Roe overturned in 2022, with most Americans opposed to a national ban.
In one of the only pieces of health policy in the GOP’s 2024 platform, the former president promises not to cut Social Security or Medicare, the health program for elderly and disabled Americans, or change the federal retirement age.
In his acceptance speech Thursday night, Trump promised to protect Medicare and find cures for Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. But he did not outline any health care proposals for a second term. “The Democrats are going to destroy Social Security and Medicare,” he said.
Health care is not a winning issue for Republicans, said Charles Coughlin, CEO of a Phoenix public affairs firm who was a longtime GOP political operative before becoming an independent in 2017.
Speakers at the convention focused on inflation, crime and immigration. “They have the tried and true polling data to show that those are winnable issues for them, and that’s where they want to keep the narrative focused,” he said.
Immigration has been implicated in a number of health issues, including the opioid crisis in the US and public insurance coverage. Some Republicans — including Georgia U.S. House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, who spoke at the convention on July 15 — argued that the increase in people crossing the southern border has caused a wave of drug overdoses and deaths.
But most of the fentanyl seized at the Mexican border comes in through legal ports of entry, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and most people convicted in the U.S. of fentanyl trafficking are American citizens, according to the Commission. Condemnation of the USA.
Speaking on July 17, US House Representative Monica De La Cruz of Texas claimed that Democratic policies allow people who come to the country without permission to receive government benefits, even though they are largely ineligible for federal health programs.
De La Cruz also said the Biden administration cut Medicare Advantage for seniors. While the Biden administration this year modestly cut spending on private plans, the federal government still spends more per beneficiary on Medicare Advantage than it does on those in traditional Medicare.
The lack of speakers at the convention focused on health care reflects the new GOP platform, a document that approximates both the substance and tone of Trump’s views. Along with promising to protect Medicare, the 28-page document promises Republicans will expand veterans’ health care options, as well as access to “new affordable health care and prescription drug options” more broadly, without elaborating.
On abortion, the party dropped its decades-long call for federal limits, including language suggesting the 14th Amendment prohibits abortion. The platform also states that the party supports state-level elections on abortion policy and opposes “Late Term Abortion.” Only about 1 percent of abortions in the U.S. occur after the 21st week of pregnancy, according to KFF, a nonprofit health information organization that includes KFF Health News.
Instead, the 2016 platform — a 66-page document — also called for shifting open-ended federal Medicaid funding to block grants and introducing a Medicare “premium support model” to contain costs. He also called for limiting payouts from medical malpractice lawsuits and combating drug abuse.
The word “abortion” appears 32 times in the 2016 platform, compared to once in the 2024 document.
“The GOP is at an unexpected speed away from this issue,” Coughlin said.
During the week of the convention, video of a call between independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. and Trump surfaced online. In the video, Trump can be heard sharing debunked claims about childhood vaccines, falsely saying the vaccines can cause a baby to “radically change” and dismissing their health benefits.
As a candidate, Kennedy has repeatedly made false claims about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Trump has long entertained vaccine skeptics. (Before Trump was sworn in in 2017, Kennedy told reporters that Trump had invited him to chair a presidential commission on vaccines, though the commission never materialized.) But as president, Trump ordered the creation of “Operation Warp Speed” in 2020 that helped develop vaccines for Covid-19.
Since the start of the pandemic, however, vaccine skepticism has flourished in the Republican Party. Just 36% of Republicans say they are confident Covid vaccines are safe, and 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say parents should be able to choose not to vaccinate their children against measles, mumps, and rubella. mumps and rubella “even if this may cause health risks for other children and adults”, according to a KFF poll.
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This article was reprinted by khn.orga national newsroom that produces in-depth health journalism and is one of the core operating programs at KFF – the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.
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