You don’t really need to read past the headline – “I’m Conservative. My Disabled Son Needs Medicaid to Survive” – but here is the opening paragraph:
I’m a registered Republican who just watched her party spend much of the summer pushing through new cuts to Medicaid. I’m also here to tell you why I’m an unlikely supporter of the program. My son’s life depends on government assistance. Recent cuts to Medicaid at both the federal and state levels mean millions of families like mine could soon be at a loss for how to care for our disabled loved ones.
Rachel Roth Aldhizer tells a very moving story about her profoundly disabled son, and the way Medicare cuts will devastate her family and others like it.
Doctors’ appointments, surgeries, many therapies, adaptive equipment, specialized food, medical supplies, respite care workers (who provide temporary relief to caregivers) and more are all provided for him by Medicaid. I am even paid a living wage to care for my son.
In other words, although unspoken, Aldhizer came to recognize the importance of the social safety net only after she began to depend on it herself. She doesn’t reflect at all on the irony of having repeatedly voted for the Republicans who are responsible for the cuts she fears. She never mentions the Republican policies devastating families in ways other than by cutting Medicare — for example, the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for tens of thousands of refugees who entered the country legally, and who are now facing family-destroying deportation. Only one Republican senator voted against confirming RFK, Jr. as head of HHS, which will eventually deprive millions of children of effective vaccines.
Nor does she acknowledge the repeated Republican attempts to repeal the ACA, led by those for whom she no doubt voted, which would deprive even more Americans of medical care.
She doesn’t even apologize for her past votes.
In that sense, she is a classic Republican, with no awareness of government or public responsibility, advocating only for her own needs.
A friend of mine questioned whether Aldhizer is a “classic” Republican as opposed to a current Republican. I suppose there is a difference. On the other hand, the number of Republicans who voted for the ACA in 2009 was zero. The number who voted for Bill Clinton’s Health Security Act in 1993 was also zero.
About half of Republicans did vote for Medicare in 1965, under Lyndon Johnson, and a majority voted for the Social Security Act in 1935, under FDR. So perhaps that was the classical era – when they were the minority party with a popular Democrat in the White House.
Republicans in power have been a very different story.
Posted by Steve Lubet on August 21, 2025 at 09:25 AM