Ron DeSantis Still Can’t Defend His Record On Health Care

It’s the second time Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis has not been able to defend himself when asked about the Health Care System of Florida.

Let’s read the news and find out more.

Ron DeSantis Still Can’t Defend His Record On Health Care

Six weeks remain before the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, and former president Donald Trump is still leading national and early state Republican voter polls.

Therefore, the four candidates running against Trump spent most of their time attacking one another during the Fourth Presidential debate in an effort to establish themselves as a potential rival to Trump.

The Fourth Republican presidential debate happened on Wednesday, held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was broadcast by NewsNation.

During the debate, Elizabeth Vargas, the moderator, pointed out on the record that “Florida has more uninsured people than almost any other state” and asked Ron DeSantis why the voters should trust him on healthcare.

This isn’t the first time this question was imposed on Ron DeSantis. At the second republican debate that happened in late September, Stuart Varney, a Fox News host, also asked DeSantis the same question: “Can Americans trust you on this?”

Florida has a higher rate of uninsured citizens than practically any other state. The question was crucial, and many wanted to seek an answer to it.

The primary reason is few Republican-run, primarily southern states that have declined to expand Medicaid using the Affordable Care Act funds, also known as “Obamacare.” DeSantis is among the Republicans who don’t support the expansion.

However, when previously questioned during the September debate, DeSantis did not defend his point and went into a weaving about how inflation was driving up the price of groceries and gas on the debate stage, rather than outlining his position on Medicaid expansion or health care policy.

In the end, he made a vague statement, “We have big pharma, big insurance, and big government, and we need to tackle that and have more power for the people and the doctor-patient relationship.”

Since then, the debate over health care has gained even more traction as the complete repeal of Obamacare has resurfaced as a political issue.

The former president and current front-runner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, pledged in late November to replace Obamacare with a better program like how he did in the past throughout his first campaign and subsequent presidency.

DeSantis made a similar pledge. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” DeSantis declared, “Obamacare hasn’t worked.” He added, “We are going to replace and supersede with a better plan.”

However, DeSantis agreed that he doesn’t have a solid plan yet and would make one “probably” in the spring. But this has been the scenario for quite some time. Republicans have been promising things and then breaking them ever since Obamacare was originally passed into law.

It is unclear whether DeSantis will keep his promises and will try to come up with a proper plan to offer a better alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

But before that, we should also see if he can secure enough votes to be a viable presidential candidate. Voters will have to carefully examine his prior performance in Florida to comprehend whether he can provide quality healthcare.

DeSantis kept a similar silence to the September debate. He acknowledged that Florida had not opted to expand Medicaid and suggested that this was the proper choice because the states that had accepted and carried out the expansion were “struggling financially.”

DeSantis also failed to clarify how Medicaid blocking would assist individuals in accessing healthcare when halting expansion would increase the uninsured population.

This clearly shows that the Republicans don’t have a proper idea or plan on how they can improve the health care policies but seem to make vague promises.