Affordability. That’s the newest catch word in the political world. Democrats think it’s the key to success in the 2026 mid-term elections. The recent election of a communist mayor in New York City, who made this his campaign theme, has encouraged this strategy.

Republicans think they have the upper hand in this strategy. President Trump is now on the campaign trail again pushing the same agenda. Which side has the stronger argument?

There is no doubt that the Biden era brought us unprecedented inflation. While the peak of that inflation was 9%, the current level is now below three percent under President Trump. But many Americans aren’t celebrating because many things are still too expensive.

One important area where prices are coming down is prescription drugs. Peter Loftus, writing for The Wall Street Journal, says, “Drugmakers are doing something unusual this year: slashing prices for several widely used medicines. The companies made their typical round of price increases to start the year. In addition, they also made big cuts to U.S. list prices for widely used drugs for diabetes, blood clotting and other conditions.”

A big factor: federal government policy changes, including lower prices that Medicare negotiated and took effect for the first time this year. All told, 20 brand-name drugs had list-price cuts this month, ranging from 9.8% to 91.7%, according to 46brooklyn Research, a Dayton, Ohio-based firm that analyzes drug pricing.

Among them were a 43% cut to the list price for blood thinner Eliquis from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb and a 44.4% drop for diabetes treatment Jardiance from Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly. “These are heavyweight drugs, and to see them crater in price like this is historic,” said Antonio Ciaccia, chief executive of 46brooklyn.

There is a reason why these prices are coming down and President Trump should get the credit. Americans pay about three times what other wealthy nations do for branded prescription drugs. For years, policymakers have tried to fix this by cutting U.S. drug prices directly. President Trump has pushed a different idea: make foreign countries pay more so Americans can pay less.

David Wainer, writing in The Wall Street Journal, says, “Last year, after threatening the industry with crushing tariffs, Trump secured several commitments. The most important one: Drugmakers agreed to charge the U.S. no more than what other wealthy countries pay for newly launched medicines, as part of a policy known as “most favored nation,” or MFN.”

On paper, it makes sense. If American prices are tethered to what the U.K. or Switzerland pays, drugmakers would need to raise prices abroad and lower them in the U.S. to balance things out. But the reality is messier. How do you persuade cash-strapped governments to write bigger checks to an industry they already resent? And will pharma companies actually lower U.S. prices, or simply pocket the gains from charging Europe more?

What is clear is that pharmaceutical executives are eager to seize the moment. They now have leverage that was lacking in the past, including the full backing of U.S. trade representatives and the Commerce Department. The U.K. has already agreed to increase what it pays for medicines as part of a wider trade deal with the Trump administration. Germany and Switzerland are signaling greater openness on the issue as well.

The recent lowering of drug prices mentioned at the start of this article shows that Trump’s approach is already paying dividends to the American people. Drug prices are coming down and that makes them more affordable.

President Trump has put forth his ideas on how to fix the broken ObamaCare healthcare system. The Democrats aren’t interested in solutions to ObamaCare for two reasons; ObamaCare is their baby, passed without a single Republican vote in 2010, so they don’t want to admit they made any mistakes. Second, their goal is full government control of healthcare – socialized medicine – and ObamaCare comes closest to that goal of any U.S healthcare system.

But ObamaCare is an absolute failure, requiring additional government subsidies to keep it affordable regardless of President Obama’s promises it would lower the cost of healthcare. But rather than fix the problems, Democrats only want to throw more government money, (that’s your money and mine) as a temporary solution.

This means Republicans are fighting an uphill battle to improve the system since they can’t count on the support of Democrats. But Trump is putting forth his ideas for solutions so Democrats can’t say he doesn’t have any. The American people can decide who is better to trust with their healthcare.

Natalie Andrews and Sabrina Siddiqui, writing for The Wall Street Journal, say, “The White House released a healthcare framework on Thursday, called “The Great Healthcare Plan,” which seeks to lower prescription drug prices, increase price transparency and redirect federal subsidies from insurers to consumers. Passing the proposal into law is expected to be a tall order for a gridlocked Washington that has struggled for months to agree on a healthcare compromise aimed at easing higher premiums and other costs for millions of Americans. 

The plan brings together ideas that have been pitched by several lawmakers and asks Congress to codify executive actions designed to bring U.S. drug prices in line with the lowest level paid by other rich countries. The plan wouldn’t replace the Affordable Care Act, which many Republicans campaigned on repealing. White House officials said the measures would give more power to consumers if all the proposals were passed.

The framework is light on details and doesn’t endorse specific bills or give a timeline for when Trump wants it passed. But it does seek to codify many of the actions Trump has taken on addressing healthcare costs. The proposal doesn’t endorse extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which expired in December. Rather than paying insurers through the subsidies, Trump’s plan would instead deposit those funds directly into a savings account, similar to a Health Savings Account, and implement a cost-sharing reduction program.

“Instead of putting the needs of big corporations and special interests first, our plan finally puts you first and puts more money in your pocket,” Trump said in a video posted on the White House’s social-media accounts. “The big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win.” The plan calls for price transparency, ​​urging “any healthcare provider or insurer who accepts Medicare or Medicaid to prominently post their pricing and fees.” Price transparency bills in Congress have support from Republicans and Democrats.

Trump’s plan seeks to “end kickbacks from pharmacy-benefit managers to the large brokerage middlemen” to lower costs. Lawmakers from both parties have criticized pharmacy-benefit managers, which usually play a key role in getting prescriptions filled and reimbursed, for what the administration says is anticompetitive tactics that keep drug prices artificially high.

Some Republicans have openly called for more engagement from Trump, who has largely stayed out of the debate and received conflicting advice from aides on how to approach the subsidies. The president and his party have found themselves caught between fears that voters will punish Republicans if healthcare costs skyrocket in a midterm year defined by affordability—and concerns that backing any measure tied to the Obamacare healthcare law could spark backlash from a conservative base that has long opposed it.

The American people need to understand that Democrats are moving to take away your private insurance policy and force everyone onto a government-controlled healthcare system. That means socialized medicine and that always leads to restricted access to care, rationing of care, and denial of expensive treatments to those not considered worthy of the expense by the government. No one should be forced to accept such a system.

For months we’ve been hearing about the coming ObamaCare crisis when temporary government-enhanced subsidies expire on December 31^st. Democrats shut down the government for a record 42 days mostly because of this issue. They demanded extension of the subsidies for at least three more years lest millions of Americans lose their healthcare coverage. In typical melodramatic fashion, some Democrats claimed “people will die” if the subsidies aren’t extended.

But the crisis never happened. The Wall Street Journal editorial board reported last week, “ObamaCare’s annual open enrollment ended Thursday, and what do you know? The media-fueled panic over the expiration of the pandemic-era enhanced subsidies turned out to be a false alarm.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported last week that 22.8 million Americans have signed up for ObamaCare plans as of January 3. That’s down from 24.2 million last year. People could still sign up for plans on the federal exchange through Thursday, and some states have extended their open enrollment through the end of the month.

But even if there are few new sign-ups, enrollment is still running higher than it was in 2024—when the sweetened subsidies were available. The 1.4 million decline in sign-ups compared to 2025 enrollment is also less than was predicted. The left-leaning Urban Institute projected that ObamaCare’s subsidized enrollment would drop by 7.3 million.

The Congressional Budget Office’s ObamaCare baseline in 2024 assumed 18.9 million people would enroll in plans this year if the enhanced subsidies vanished. The budget gnomes have repeatedly underestimated ObamaCare enrollment and spending; they need to rework their models. Looks like everybody got it wrong.

 Like Chicken Little, who said the sky is falling, Democrats wanted us to believe that apart from the extension of the subsidies, nobody could afford to pay the ObamaCare premiums. This is particularly rich coming from the same people who promised us ObamaCare would save every American family at least $2500 per year. Remember President Obama’s promises? He also promised “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” That was another lie.

One reason forecasts may have missed the mark is that they overlook that most enrollees still won’t have to pay all that much for their plans. The Paragon Health Institute estimates that an average enrollee making 150% of the poverty line ($23,475 for an individual) will be expected to pay only $14 a week.

An enrollee earning 250% of the poverty line ($39,125) would have to pay more, but still only $52 a week. Keep in mind that the income thresholds that determine subsidy amounts—which decline as incomes increase—don’t include government benefits like food stamps, welfare and disability payments and the child tax credit.

The Administration says sign-ups declined this year mainly because of measures it took to crack down on fraud. Paragon’s Brian Blase calculates that about 12 million ObamaCare enrollees in 2024 had no medical claims, suggesting they may have been enrolled in plans without their knowledge. Fraud may also explain why enrollment hasn’t fallen more.

The WSJ editors say, “The Democratic ObamaCare scare campaign has turned out to be a false and partisan alarm. Republicans who still fall for it now that the reality is clear deserve to be in the minority.”

The truth is ObamaCare is a train wreck that will only get worse the more politicians prop it up with more money. It has never lived up to the hype Democrats pushed when they passed it in 2010 under President Obama. It’s time to fix the problem with new ideas, not just more money.