Why would we ever trust Democrats on fuel prices or healthcare?
by Tim Murtaugh · The Washington TimesOPINION:
Some readers may find this difficult to believe, but Democrats running for Congress this year are being outrageous hypocrites on the issue of gas prices.
If you have seen a TV ad about high fuel costs, there is a two-thirds chance it was run by a Democrat, according to a Politico analysis of AdImpact data, an ad-tracking firm.
It is curious that Democrats would complain about the price of gas, because it contradicts their well-established position.
Leftists want gasoline to be expensive because they do not want people to use it. To Democrats, high prices are not a problem; they are a policy goal. They think it is good environmental practice to intentionally raise fuel prices.
If you do not believe it, look at the last time they were in power.
On his first day in office, President Biden and his gang of environmental radicals revoked the permit for the planned Keystone XL pipeline, blocking the future transport of up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
They ordered a pause on oil and gas leasing offshore and on federal lands and outright canceled other lease sales.
They concocted onerous regulations to strangle the energy industry and pivoted the federal government away from supporting fossil fuels because of their ideological opposition.
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Democrats in the current Congress introduced legislation that would confiscate $1 trillion from energy companies over 10 years — a punishment for the legal production of energy — thereby driving up costs for consumers.
It is obvious that driving up the cost of fuel intentionally is not the same as seeing prices temporarily spike because the U.S. is trying to rid the world of the worst state sponsor of terrorism, as President Trump is doing in Iran.
Although leftists may favor higher fuel costs in principle, that does not prevent them from publicly advocating the exact opposite when running for office.
The same phenomenon is at play when Democrats discuss environmental policies in general. For a while, leftists talked openly about climate change in terms of aspirations and legislation, including the horrific, economy-crushing Green New Deal.
Yet as details of their iron-fisted environmental plans became better known, the public recoiled, so Democrats stopped talking about them so much.
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In June, Inside Climate News published an analysis of congressional Democrats’ press releases and found that they were engaged in something called “climate hushing,” which basically means they try not to say the more radical parts out loud anymore.
And wouldn’t you know, Democrats have been coached on this.
The Searchlight Institute, a left-of-center think tank, released a poll of battleground states in 2025 and concluded, “The first rule about solving climate change: Do not say climate change.”
It might as well say, “Whatever you do, Democrats, do not tell them who you really are.”
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As hypocritical as Democrats have been about energy policy, they have been equally bad on the key issue of healthcare.
Democrats wrote every word of the Affordable Care Act and created its surrounding regulatory framework, and the result is that everyone hates the American healthcare system.
Health insurance premiums continue to rise while coverage continues to worsen. As premiums rise and coverage worsens, the rate at which people are denied coverage by insurers is also rising rapidly.
The insurance companies got everything they wanted from Democrats in Congress when Obamacare was written, and then again in the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act. Trillions of taxpayer dollars have been run through the insurance companies, but that has not stopped premiums from soaring.
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At the same time, opportunists have taken advantage of a federal program that was originally meant to provide cheaper drugs to patients but has failed. Democrats have shown no interest in fixing the program.
Under the 340B drug pricing program, certain qualified health clinics receive discounted prescription drugs and are expected to pass on the savings to patients, but they do not.
Worse still, instead of passing on the discounts, clinics often mark up the prices. If patients do not pay the higher prices directly, Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance companies will. The result is higher costs across the entire healthcare system.
Although the 340B program was a good idea at its 1992 inception, guidance issued by the Obama administration’s Health Resources and Services Administration in March 2010 allowed clinics to enter into contracts with practically unlimited numbers of pharmacies simultaneously, enabling them to exploit it to multiply their profits countless times over.
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Let us just say it is not a Democratic success story.
All this should have consequences, with the midterm elections now just over 40 days away.
If voters truly care about affordability more than anything else, as pollsters tell us, then the Democrats’ record on energy and healthcare should be disqualifying.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and founder of Line Drive Public Affairs. He served as a senior adviser on the 2024 Trump campaign and as communications director on the 2020 Trump campaign.
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