Chris Carney Quoted on Biden Administration Healthcare Strategy

Chris Carney was quoted in the McClatchy DC article, “Biden pursues low-profile strategy on health care, hoping to avoid Obamacare pitfalls.” The article takes a look at how the Biden Administration hopes to build on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with measured, strategic change—and how one of the first steps in this strategy is included in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill. In the bill, McClatchy reports that there is a provision “that provide[s] the largest increase in access to health care since [ACA] became law.”

The article states that inserting lower-profile healthcare reforms—that achieve consensus among Democrats—into larger bills may become a “signature tactic” of the Biden Administration. Expanding insurance coverage has a history of being perilous politically, particularly when such efforts are high profile. For example, after the Clinton Administration sought to reshape healthcare, Democrats fared poorly in the 1994 midterms and the party met a similar fate in 2010 after Obamacare was signed into law.

Commenting on this topic, Chris said, “You could probably make a reasonable argument that because of the way the politics of Obamacare were handled, Democrats lost at least a decade, if not more, of opportunities around the states.” He added that he thought "Biden was cognizant of the cost of those defeats and as a result was taking a more careful approach to the issue now.”

Chris represented Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District for two terms and was a tenured professor of political science specializing in international relations at Penn State University. Prior to running for Congress, he worked at the Pentagon for four years on strategic analysis of the global terrorist threat, ran the Department of Defense’s Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and was the “Special Projects” intelligence officer for two tours during Operation Southern Watch. Chris received a Presidential appointment as a Commissioner on the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission (MCRMC) and served as a Senior Intelligence Specialist at NAI2O.