GOP congressman: People should stop trying to make health care better

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) is tired of listening to people whine about the health care system. On Tuesday morning, Burgess visited “Fox & Friends” to complain about efforts by Democrats to improve the health care system.

“Why don’t we celebrate stuff that’s working?” Burgess asked. He then went on to claim Trump somehow deserves credit for expanding access to health care.

“Since Donald Trump was inaugurated, 2.5 million people, not just are working, but they have employer-sponsored insurance that didn’t have it before,” Burgess said. “This is a great success of the Trump administration. I don’t know why we don’t talk about it more.”

But the total number of people with health insurance has decreased since Trump took office and not just a little bit. In his first two years, seven million more Americans are without health insurance than before Trump was elected.

Burgess’s larger complaint — that people should just be content with the health care they have — also rings hollow. Burgess and his fellow Republicans spent the better part of a decade trying to eliminate the very health care system he now wants to celebrate.

From 2011 through 2018, Republicans desperately tried to repeal the health care law and replace it with something that increases health care costs and rips away protections from people with preexisting conditions.

And many Republicans in Congress are still at it. New bills introduced this year imperil the health care of cancer patients, individuals with asthma, and millions of Americans who are living with preexisting conditions.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is actively trying to rip away health care from 20 million Americans by joining the lawsuit to try to completely strike down Obamacare.

The relentless attacks on health care have taken a toll on Republicans. The American public has a deep distrust of Republican health care policy, and would much rather see Democrats handle the issue. A new poll shows that only 23% of Americans trust Republicans on health care and give Democrats a 17-point advantage on the issue.

Polls also regularly show that rather than destroy the ACA, like Republicans want, Americans prefer attempts to strengthen and improve it, which Democrats in Congress are trying to do. But now Republicans like Burgess are objecting to those efforts as well, telling voters they should be happy with what they already have and stop wanting their health care to be any better than it is.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.