Florida Gov.-elect Byron Donalds said Sunday that Republicans will need to present their own healthcare policy proposals to voters as the party looks toward the 2028 election.
Speaking with Larry Kudlow, interim host of Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures," Donalds said GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill are engaged in "many debates" over whether to tackle healthcare, and noted that Republican leaders "did not want to take healthcare on."
"We need market-centered healthcare policy that will stabilize prices in healthcare and drive down costs in healthcare," he said. "And Republicans, I think, for '28 and beyond, we need to step into that breach and say, 'Here's how you actually get it done on healthcare.' Because if we continue under Democrat policy, it's going to continue to price out hardworking families all across America."
Donalds pointed to New York Times reporting that Affordable Care Act premiums are set to rise by an average of 13 percent in 2027, arguing that the country has spent the past 15 years "under Democrat policy and healthcare."
"The premiums are out of control, the deductibles are out of control, the costs are out of control. And now you have Bernie Sanders and the left, they're talking about Medicare for All," Donalds said, referring to the independent Vermont senator's signature push for single-payer healthcare.
His comments come days after voters delivered a sharp rebuke of the GOP health agenda in Tuesday's midterm elections. Democrats had made healthcare affordability a central campaign issue, promising to restore enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies and to delay or roll back Medicaid cuts enacted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The Democratic sweep was also widely read as a rejection of the Make America Healthy Again agenda promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Trump administration's broader health policies.
The results have also energized supporters of Medicare for All. Among Tuesday's winners was Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, part of a group of progressives headed to the House and Senate who are expected to press for single-payer healthcare. Public backing for the idea has been rising as families struggle with medical costs: a KFF poll in September found two-thirds of Americans favor a "single government plan."
President Trump returned to office after telling voters he had the "framework of a plan" for healthcare, following the defeat of his earlier healthcare effort during his first term. As the final two years of his second term come into focus, El-Sayed told ABC's Jonathan Karl on "This Week" that he is willing to work with the president on affordable healthcare despite the sharp attacks the two traded during the campaign. "I've said this: if he wants to pass Trump Care for All, which will guarantee health care to everyone, and put his name on it, like he's putting his name on everything, I'm game," El-Sayed said.
