The one thing about the mess USA Today has created for itself is that it has had to go out of its way to publish pieces obliterating the lies contained in the op-ed it printed from popular vote loser Donald Trump about health care. One of the best comes from Andy Slavitt, who ran the Affordable Care Act and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2015 to 2017 and who is also a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors. It would have been helpful had his work been published side-by-side with Trump's, or if he'd been enlisted to do the fact check beforehand since he's like a regular there, but better late than never.
In response to the fearmongering about Democrats' socialist agenda for health care, Slavitt lays down some reality:
Every single Republican in the Congress cast a vote for repeal except for 20 Republicans in the House and three in the Senate. Nine in that small group are retiring or not up for re-election this year. So unless you’re voting for one of the remaining 14, you will be casting a vote to make it far more likely that Americans would once again be subject to the tyranny of lifetime limits, Swiss cheese insurance policies and lost pre-existing condition protections.
Of course, he points out, the public already knows this—just look at the polling on which party the nation’s voters trust more on healthcare policy. Republicans can't possibly run on "Democrats are trying to take your healthcare away" after eight years of running on repealing the Affordable Care Act and all of the patient protections that go with it, and when they—with Trump's backing—are suing to take protections for people with pre-existing conditions away. When every Republican budget for the past eight years has included efforts to slash Medicare or turn it into a voucher program or raise the eligibility age for it, they can't turn around and say Democrats are trying to destroy, as Trump tried to do.
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There's also the reality that Democrats won't—can't—win enough seats in this midterm election to do all the dire things Trump lied about in his op-ed: socialize medicine (and open the borders). Even with a massive win in the House, Democrats could only win a narrow margin in the Senate because of the 2018 map of races. And Trump will still be in the White House.
What can happen with this election—and what Trump and the Republicans are terrified of—is that Democrats will win enough seats to hold the line on the ACA and prevent more sabotage. Or Republicans hold and renew their efforts to destroy it. That makes 2018, as Slavitt says, "another epic battle to cut health care for millions, or the potential for small but bipartisan steps toward progress. That is really what’s at stake Nov. 6."