With election season pretty much in full swing, ads from members of Congress trying to keep their seats next year are ramping up, not just in quantity, but in bogusness. While this is hardly the first year campaign ads have strayed from the truth, there’s been a noticeable and concerning new pattern among multiple Republicans running for reelection. From Iowa to Florida, and Colorado to New Jersey, Republicans are claiming to be…taking on “Big Insurance”?
You read that right. The very same Republicans who have sided with health insurance companies again and again, blocking any sort of meaningful health care reform since the Affordable Care Act, are now claiming to be enemies of the industry.
But their campaign bank accounts tell a different story.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
Miller-Meeks is an ophthalmologist who has been in Congress since 2021. She has ** a new campaign ad** out where she says, “In Congress, I fight the Big Insurance Lobby. I’m their number one enemy. Well, you know what I say to Big Insurance? Bring it on.”
Here’s the truth: Iowa Starting Line found that ** “Big Insurance” has been very generous to Miller-Meeks**. In this election cycle alone, she brought in an astonishing $501,000 in health industry PAC donations, second biggest category in her campaign. $11,500 of that was from Big Insurance. She even
So, to summarize, she’s a physician, she took in a half million dollars from health industry PACs, and she voted for the OBBBA. All while running an ad telling Big Insurance to “bring it on.”
Cammack has also been in Congress since 2021. She is currently ** running an ad** where she says she is “taking on Big Insurance” and “fighting to increase care, lower costs and hold insurance companies accountable.”
Turns out that, this cycle alone, she’s already taken in $37,000 from Big Insurance companies. Since 2020, she’s received at least $113,500 from them.
Hurd has been in office since 2025. He has ** a new ad** out where he says he took on insurance and drug companies to lower costs. In the short time he has been in office, Hurd has already taken $6,500 from insurance companies alone, according to the
Given the type of pushback Hurd is getting from constituents, it’s not surprising that he’s pretending that he “took on insurance and drug companies.” This is from ** a report** about a recent coffee he had for constituents:
As part of his official duties, he’s setting up coffees throughout the vast district to meet with constituents and hear their concerns. For more than an hour, Hurd went table to table at the Glenwood Springs library. He faced tough questions from voters like McCullough. She is a full-time caregiver for her adult son Chris, who lives with significant disabilities.
She told Hurd she was very disappointed he voted for the Republicans’ massive tax cut package in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and said it directly affected her family.
“I was not happy with that and still am not happy with that. And my question to you would be, why would you have voted for that if you know that it’s going to take money and services and everything away from your constituents?” [...]
He contended his vote didn’t cut services.
“Well, you haven’t convinced me. Sorry,” McCullough replied.
There is ** no mention** of health care anywhere on Hurd’s campaign website.
Kean has been in office since 2023. In ** his new ad**, he appears very, very serious saying, “I meet too many families who pay too much, who get denied care, who
In July of 2025, Donald Trump signed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) into law. It is estimated to cut taxes, mostly for the super-wealthy, by $4.5 billion over the next ten years. To pay for that tax giveaway, it cuts health care spending by over $1 trillion and will throw a projected 10 million people off their health insurance coverage by 2034.
The bill passed both the House and Senate exclusively with Republican votes. In fact, only three GOP Senators and two GOP House members voted against it.
With health care costs now surging – along with groceries, gas, and just about everything else – Democrats are hammering Republicans with an affordability message that is resonating with voters. It’s no wonder Republicans are now pretending that they are the ones who care about affordability, telling voters that they are taking on insurance companies and blaming these corporations for the problem. It’s a diversion to avoid being accountable for their own personal roles in the massive spike in health care costs being experienced by nearly every American.
Thanks to moves by Republicans last year, there are few Americans who haven’t seen their health care costs skyrocket. After passing the OBBBA, they made matters worse by refusing to extend the enhanced premium subsidies for Affordable Care Act policies, ensuring that those who can least afford it get hit a second time.
But affordability is in the front of everyone’s minds as we head into the November midterms and Republicans know it. Their efforts to claim they have “taken on Big Insurance companies” fall flat when Americans see no improvement and especially when they find out these very same lawmakers happily take campaign donations from the corporations they claim to be taking on.
Their hypocrisy rivals the days of Republicans taking credit for the infrastructure investments put in place by Democrats and holding giant checks for photo ops.
The question is if voters will hold them accountable. A big part of that is making sure they know about the hypocrisy and know that it is Republicans who are responsible for their much higher health care costs, no matter what they say in their campaign ads.
That, in part, is on us.
