Josh Hawley, Republican U.S. senator from Missouri, recently wrote an opinion article in The New York Times imploring his Congressional colleagues not to cut Medicaid benefits in their effort to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country including the president.
He is a recent convert to this fight to protect Medicaid benefits, which were established in 1965 by a Democrat President Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress. They enacted Medicare over strong Republican opposition. Ronald Reagan called Medicare the biggest threat to freedom. This was during the Cold War.
Sen. Hawley points out that Missouri voters overwhelmingly voted in 2020 to expand Medicaid while they voted for Donald Trump by a substantial margin. Sen. Hawley voted against allowing states to expand Medicaid when it was part of Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act of 2010 when all Republicans voted against it.
As of today, 40 states have expanded Medicaid. Only the 10 deepest red Republican-controlled states have refused to help their constituents – the working poor and the very poor – though polls show most Republicans support protecting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Social Security was enacted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress in 1935.
Republicans have never been the party of the working class. The only time the working class get any support from the U.S. government is when Democrats are in control of the presidency and the Congress.
Ian Root
Durango
