Not content with retreating on health care, some Republicans — unfortunately led by President Trump — want to retreat further on abortion at the same time. But there is still time to change course.
At issue is whether Congress will extend, and effectively make permanent, enhanced subsidies for Obamacare policies. It’s being considered because of problems that the Democrats created. First, through Obamacare, they introduced regulations that make individual and family health policies so expensive that even upper-middle-class families have difficulty affording them. Then, they passed supposedly “temporary” increases in subsidies during Covid. Democrats are now blaming the expiration of that extra federal assistance — an expiration contained in the legislation they themselves passed — on the Republicans.
Some Republican congressmen believe that they have to agree with Democrats on an extension or they will suffer in the next elections. Now Trump is urging them to be “a little flexible on Hyde”: to be willing, that is, to vote for extra subsidies for health insurance policies even if those policies cover abortions. (The “Hyde amendment” is a long-standing law that bars federal Medicaid funding for most abortions; people often use the phrase to stand for the general principle that taxpayers should not finance abortion.)
We understand that the politics of abortion frighten a lot of Republican politicians. But their fear has outstripped reality. Republicans have gained ground in each of the two national elections since Roe v. Wade was overturned, taking the House in 2022 and the Senate and presidency in 2024. No pro-life senator or governor lost his office in either election.
Taxpayer funding of abortion, moreover, has long been one of the issues where the public most sides with pro-lifers. A poll last year found that 57 percent of Americans, including 41 percent of those who consider themselves “pro-choice,” oppose “using tax dollars to pay for abortion.”
Republican concessions may also be pointless. A significant faction of Democrats do not want a deal in the first place: They would rather be able to keep blaming Republicans for premium increases or lost coverage. Left-wing groups are already running attack ads against House Republicans, even ones who voted with the Democrats on the subsidies. Being “flexible on Hyde” could mean voting for a grave evil — facilitating the unjust taking of human lives — angering political allies, and not getting any political payoff in return. Even the most timorous of Republicans should be able to reject that combination.