GOP midterm candidates turn on affordable health care

Republicans running for 2026 would raise out-of-pocket premiums and weaken consumer protections while others want ACA scrapped.

A number of Republicans in highly competitive 2026 New Hampshire races are coming out against affordable health care and protections as the shutdown of the federal government drags on over Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.

Republicans like John Sununu, top GOP contender for the open US Senate seat, and State Sen. Victoria Sullivan of Manchester have in recent days either expressed belief that ACA recipients should pay on average $1100+ more for insurance out of pocket per year — or that the ACA and its many consumer protections should be done away with altogether.

Sununu claimed there were many other areas of healthcare savings to be had, without naming specifics. Republicans have repeatedly failed to find policy alternatives to the ACA that provably delivers consumer savings while increasing healthcare access.

“During COVID, we had a crisis… they said, this is temporary.” Sununu said on a New Hampshire morning radio show recently. He added that Democrats’ support of the tax credits amounted to lying about a crisis.

“Well, the COVID crisis is over… If you have a crisis and someone says to you, we’re gonna do something, but it’ll be temporary only for the crisis, and then when the crisis is over, they say, let’s make this permanent. You’ve been lied to and that is wrong.”

On a conservative podcast, Sununu also said extending the ACA tax credits was “totally unnecessary,” adding, “making something permanent in its entirety that was meant to be temporary is fundamentally wrong.”

RELATED: New poll tries to rebrand Sununu on LGBTQ+ and abortion

According to recent polls three-quarters (74%) of the public are in favor of extending ACA tax credits driving the shutdown.

Sununu was joined by Sullivan, who made an evidence-free claim on social media that doing away with the tax credit would somehow save people money.

“The more the government regulates healthcare the more private citizens pay while also losing options,” Sullivan said. “The dems will literally let people go without food in order protect their beloved Obamacare.” (sic)

State Rep. Joe Sweeney of Salem went the farthest of all.

In a post on social media, Sweeney said it was time to get rid of the ACA altogether and all the protections it affords.

“Democrats wanted to break our health care system in order to have the government take it fully over.” Sweeney said. “We should try Free Market health care for a change.”

That was the standard in the US prior to the ACA’s implementation in 2010.

During that time, insurers could deny or price out people with preexisting conditions, rescind coverage, impose annual/lifetime caps, charge women and older adults more, exclude many essential benefits, and leave young adults off parents’ plans — contributing to tens of millions (about one in six Americans) being uninsured or underinsured and highly vulnerable to medical bankruptcy.

Prior to its passage, 82% of Americans wanted a new system.