The $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill that Congress passed last week did a lot more than provide pandemic aid: It also included the biggest expansion of Obamacare in the program’s history. And here’s what was strange about that: Republicans raised hardly any objections.
From the Affordable Care Act’s passage in 2010 through President Donald Trump’s failed reelection campaign last year, GOP politicians have vowed to repeal the federally run insurance plan. But the last time Republicans really tried to scrap Obamacare was in 2017, and that attempt failed. Since then, their attacks have been little more than lip service.
In his many speeches last week denouncing President Joe Biden’s COVID relief bill, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell mentioned Obamacare only once, and then only to complain that the program was becoming too generous to upper-income families. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, once a leader of the anti-Obamacare jihad, didn’t mention the program at all.
