Health costs are fueling voter stress — and Democratic campaigns

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump ’s second term has presented an array of opportunities for political opponents, from immigration crackdowns and lingering inflation to attacks on independent institutions and friction with overseas allies.

But many Democrats are staying focused on health care, an issue that was once a political liability but has become foundational for the party in recent elections. They insist their strategy will help the party regain control of Congress in midterm elections, and fare better than chasing headlines about the latest outrages out of the White House.

Republicans last year cut around $1 trillion over a decade from Medicaid and declined to extend COVID-era subsidies that had lowered the cost of Affordable Care Act health plans.

In response, Democrats are filming campaign spots outside struggling hospitals, spotlighting Americans facing spiking insurance premiums and sharing their own personal health care stories.

Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, one of the party's most endangered incumbents this year, is expected to highlight health care challenges at a campaign rally Saturday in suburban Atlanta.

“It’s a banger of an issue for Democrats,” said Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist and executive director of the advocacy group Protect Our Care. “I think it will be part of every single campaign, up and down the ballot.”

Republicans defend their votes as reining in ballooning health spending and cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse, and Trump recently launched a new website to help patients buy discounted prescription drugs. However, the party has been unable so far to pass comprehensive legislation to offset Americans' health costs, despite controlling both chambers of Congress.

Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, said the issue would remain his party's “Achilles' heel” until its leaders draft realistic proposals that can be turned into law.

Public opinion on health care wasn’t always in the Democrats’ favor

Health care was once seen as a political liability for the left.

In 2010, Democrats lost their House majority after President Barack Obama’s signature health policy, the ACA, passed without a single Republican vote. In 2014, they gave up the Senate a year after the Obama administration fumbled the rollout of Healthcare.gov.

But those tides turned when President Donald Trump “touched the stove” during his first term, Woodhouse said. The Republican president supported efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare that would have left millions uninsured and made it harder for those with preexisting conditions to get coverage.

Although the legislation failed to pass, health care has since been a thorny issue for Republicans, a weakness aggravated last year when lawmakers passed a bill expected to cut more than $1 trillion over a decade from federal health care and food assistance, largely by imposing work requirements on those receiving aid and by shifting certain costs onto the states.

Republicans said the move would stave off abuse of the Medicaid program, and they added a $50 billion investment in rural health to offset losses. But that didn’t stop Democratic groups from attacking. Unrig Our Economy, one left-wing group, said that since 2025 began, it has funneled more than $12 million into ads criticizing Republicans on health care.

Democrats saw another opportunity to win voters' support last year, when enhanced ACA tax credits were headed toward expiration, and they forced a government shutdown over the issue. The funding wasn't restored but the party believes they gained political leverage going into this year's campaigns.

“Republicans own it now,” said Eric Stern, a Democratic media strategist. “You better believe Democrats are going to be talking about that.”

Candidates meet with hospital leaders and showcase emotional storytellers

Stef Feldman, a Democratic consultant who was an aide to former President Joe Biden, said she's hearing from candidates that voters care about health affordability “more than just about anything else.”

A recent poll from the health care research nonprofit KFF backs that observation. It found that about a third of American adults are “very worried” about the cost of health care, compared to about a quarter who feel the same way about the cost of groceries, housing or utilities.

For Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls, who is running for the U.S. Senate this year, tapping into those concerns has meant visits to vulnerable hospitals and tours of pharmacies. For Wisconsin U.S. House candidate Rebecca Cooke, it’s meant sit-downs with hospital leaders and telling personal stories, including about her dad’s expensive prostate cancer drugs and the $200 jump in her own ACA premiums.

Ossoff, the only Democratic senator seeking reelection this year in a state that Trump won in 2024, called health care “a life-or-death question” in a recent campaign video.

At his rally Saturday, one expected speaker is Teresa Acosta, who frequently stumps for Democratic candidates. She said her ACA policy, which covers herself and two teenagers, including a son with Type 1 diabetes, now costs $520 a month, seven times more than before expanded subsidies went away.

“I think most people would agree that health care is a human right,” Acosta said. “And the Republicans seem hellbent on weakening access to it.”

ACA plans are heavily relied upon in Georgia because it’s one of the 10 states that didn’t expand Medicaid. As a result, advocates have warned that the expiration of expanded ACA subsidies could leave Georgia residents uninsured. Recent federal data shows about 14% fewer Georgians have signed up for plans in 2026 compared to last year, although those numbers are not yet final.

Republicans want a real fix, not throwing money at a ‘broken system’

U.S. Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, two of Ossoff’s top Republican opponents, voted in January against a temporary ACA tax-credit extension that passed the House but languished in the Senate. Both deride the ACA as the “Unaffordable Care Act,” a phrase used by Trump, and favor a narrower Republican alternative.

Carter, who worked as a pharmacist, said an extension amounted to “throwing more money at a broken system, riddled with waste, fraud and abuse, without addressing the root cause of skyrocketing costs.”

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, the Wisconsin Republican fending off a challenge from Cooke, was one of 17 Republicans who voted for the temporary extension. He said he didn't support the subsidies but had to vote that way to protect his constituents, noting Democrats set the expiration date in the first place.

However, Van Orden was also critical of his own party for allowing the tax credits to expire without another solution in place.

“For the last 15 years, when you said health care, they'd dive out the window and barrel roll into a bush and hide,” Van Orden said. “We’re the party of good policy, and so we should be writing policy, and we need to embrace this.”

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Swenson reported from New York.