{"id":10952,"date":"2026-01-23T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=10952"},"modified":"2026-01-23T19:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T19:30:00","slug":"dems-see-opportunities-in-republican-embrace-of-maha-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=10952","title":{"rendered":"Dems See Opportunities in Republican Embrace of MAHA Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s\u00a0a lot\u00a0going on in Washington right now. While President Donald Trump has\u00a0been grabbing\u00a0for Greenland,\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0also talked in the\u00a0White House\u00a0about health\u00a0policy \u2014\u00a0whether\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the\u00a0Rural\u00a0Health\u00a0Transformation\u00a0Program<\/a>,\u00a0ways\u00a0to address<\/a>\u00a0the nation\u2019s spiraling health costs, or an effort to\u00a0promote\u00a0whole\u00a0milk<\/a>\u00a0in schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the same time, congressional Republicans are eyeing health issues from the\u00a0\u201cMake America Healthy Again<\/a>\u201d\u00a0perspective,\u00a0hoping it will provide a boost in the midterm elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s\u00a0why.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans see the MAHA constituency as critical in the midterms and beyond because its supporters include desirable voting demographics:\u00a0independents and\u00a0some\u00a0Democrats,\u00a0many\u00a0of whom are women, younger voters, or suburbanites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The strategy risks backfiring, though, because polls show\u00a0voters\u00a0care more<\/a>\u00a0about reducing health care costs than\u00a0about\u00a0MAHA\u2019s\u00a0war on junk food or efforts to roll back access to vaccines.\u00a0The affordability\u00a0issue<\/a>\u00a0was thrust\u00a0center stage\u00a0last year\u00a0when enhanced subsidies\u00a0for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans\u00a0expired.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result,\u00a0many\u00a0of the\u00a0roughly\u00a023\u00a0million people\u00a0who buy coverage on the health\u00a0law\u2019s\u00a0marketplaces are now facing premium payments more than double what they faced last year.\u00a0Congress is continuing to\u00a0wrestle<\/a>\u00a0with what has\u00a0emerged\u00a0as a key kitchen table issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democrats are strategizing about how to use public support for MAHA priorities to their own advantage.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0hoping to expose GOP policies that run counter to MAHA priorities; trumpet Democrats\u2019 efforts to tackle health care costs; and highlight their own party\u2019s work on such MAHA goals as\u00a0cracking down on pesticide-makers<\/a>, according to some Democratic strategists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democrats\u00a0are talking about\u00a0their continuing fight to address health care costs while\u00a0largely\u00a0avoiding\u00a0direct attacks on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or MAHA,\u00a0because the movement resonates with the public. Meanwhile, cracks are\u00a0starting to threaten<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Make America Great Again coalition\u00a0and the lockstep support Trump has enjoyed from Capitol Hill Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Republicans, the next batch of MAHA events and summits\u00a0is already scheduled. After taking a political back seat in recent years, health care may dominate the 2026 election races.<\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

This story can be republished for free (details<\/a>).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s\u00a0a lot\u00a0going on in Washington right now. While President Donald Trump has\u00a0been grabbing\u00a0for Greenland,\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0also talked in the\u00a0White House\u00a0about health\u00a0policy \u2014\u00a0whether\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the\u00a0Rural\u00a0Health\u00a0Transformation\u00a0Program,\u00a0ways\u00a0to address\u00a0the nation\u2019s spiraling health costs, or an effort to\u00a0promote\u00a0whole\u00a0milk\u00a0in schools.\u00a0 At the same time, congressional Republicans are eyeing health issues from the\u00a0\u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d\u00a0perspective,\u00a0hoping it will provide a boost in the midterm elections.\u00a0 Here\u2019s\u00a0why.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}