While health care was not a major focus in the 2024 presidential election, it has become a central front between the parties during President Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term, as the government shutdown that appears inevitable this week will demonstrate again.

The increased focus on health care could have important implications for the 2026 election because polls show that it is an issue on which the public expresses more confidence in Democrats than Republicans.

Few health debates have galvanized public attention as much as Trump’s 2017 effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But the panoramic disruption that Trump and his Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are bringing to the health care system cumulatively exceeds the changes he pursued during his first t

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