By Nicole Silverio, Daily Caller News Foundation | January 29, 2025
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired back at Democrats who were “chuckling” at his claim that most Americans prefer to be enrolled in private insurance during his Wednesday Senate confirmation hearing.
Kennedy said that the nation needs to “improve” healthcare” for all Americans, particularly veterans, lower income and elderly individuals, and argued that the billions of dollars sent to Medicaid on a yearly basis has not succeeded in making citizens healthier. He argued that a majority of Americans do not approve of government-run health insurance such as the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid.
“Americans don’t, by and large, do not like the Affordable Care Act. People are on it, they don’t like Medicaid, they like Medicare. And they like private insurance. We need to listen to people, they would prefer to be on private insurance, most Americans if they can afford to be, will be on private insurance. We need to figure out ways to improve care, particularly for [the] elderly, for veterans, for the poor in this country. And the current model [of Medicaid] is not doing that. Ask any of the Democrats who are chuckling just now, do you think all that money, that $900 billion we’re sending to Medicaid every year is making Americans healthy? Do we think it’s working for anybody? Are the premiums low enough?”
A Gallup poll from Dec. 2024 found that Americans are split on their preference for health insurance, with 49% of Americans preferring a system based on private insurance and 46% favoring a government-run system. Nearly half of independents, 49%, said they prefer private insurance, while 47% want a government-run system.
Though former President Barack Obama promised that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the cost of premiums by $2,500 annually, the average American family’s health insurance premiums more than doubled from $244 per month to $558 between 2013 and 2019, according to the Heritage Foundation. Supporters at the time suggested that the legislation would help resolve infant mortality, though the rate only witnessed modest declines.
Several Democrats and left-wing politicians, including independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have called on passing a single-payer system that would abolish private insurance and make the federal government the sole provider of healthcare services.
Kennedy has been highly critical of additives in highly processed American foods and has been a skeptic of some vaccines, though he has assured the public he is not “anti-vaccine.” Many Democrats, including members of his own family, have accused him of being an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and a danger to public health.
Nicole Silverio is a media reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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