The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have an undeniably poor record on health care. In addition to repeatedly threatening to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and pushing for devastating cuts to programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), majority leaders have increased costs for consumers and undermined critical protections for all individuals who need comprehensive health care coverage. Recognizing that Medicare funding and health care more broadly are top priorities for voters, however, Republicans are deploying last-minute scare tactics to manipulate voters ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Congressional Democrats, they claim, are looking to gut Medicare in order to pay for Medicare for All.
In August, Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) began running an ad campaign that calls his Democratic challenger, Jared Golden, a “radical liberal politician [whose] risky scheme will end Medicare as we know it.” Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) has been running similar ads, which portray her opponent’s support for Medicare for All as a dangerous “scheme that could bankrupt Medicare.” On September 6, 2018, former Governor of Florida and current senatorial candidate Rick Scott (R) tweeted, “If you want to protect Medicare, vote Republican. If you want a socialist experiment with Medicare, by all means vote Democrat.”
Even President Donald Trump has adopted this messaging. In August, the president threatened that Democrats are seeking to “raid Medicare to pay for socialism.” At a September rally in Montana, he claimed that Democrats are “going to hurt your Social Security so badly, and they’re killing you on Medicare.”