Healthcare

John Cornyn (R)

Cornyn voted for every major ACA repeal-and-replace attempt — the 2017 skinny repeal, the BCRA, and Graham-Cassidy — and opposes extending the enhanced premium tax credits that expire in 2025. He supports Health Savings Account expansion, association health plans for small businesses, and Medicaid block grants to states. He voted for the Inflation Reduction Act's $35 Medicare insulin cap but against the broader prescription-drug-price-negotiation framework, calling it price controls. He has championed mental-health-parity enforcement, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and rural-hospital relief legislation that targets the closures hitting Texas hardest. He treats Talarico's Medicare buy-in as a first step toward single-payer and has consistently voted against any public-option framework.

James Talarico (D)

Talarico's signature proposal is a Medicare buy-in open to every American at any age as a not-for-profit public option competing with private insurance. He would restore the ACA enhanced premium tax credits, save rural hospitals through better Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement, regulate PBMs, reform prior authorization, and ban medical debt on credit reports. He would codify Roe v. Wade, protect contraception and IVF, and oppose VA privatization while expanding veterans' mental health services. In Austin he capped insulin co-pays at $25/month after his own diabetic-ketoacidosis diagnosis (a $684 first prescription), passed Canadian drug-import legislation, and used a procedural point of order to kill a bill that would have cut Medicaid coverage. He has framed Republican healthcare cuts as 'a moral crime' that will cause '51,000 Americans to die needlessly.'

Healthcare

John Cornyn (R)

James Talarico (D)

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