LANSING — As they meet on the debate stage this week, Republican gubernatorial candidates Mike Cox, Perry Johnson, and John James have all supported cutting healthcare for Michiganders and raising healthcare premiums.
On the debate stage this week, there will be little daylight between the candidates on their support for cutting healthcare:
- Mike Cox joined a lawsuit after the ACA was signed into law seeking to block its implementation—and emails later exposed how Cox’s top staffers were communicating and coordinating on the lawsuit with the Republican State Leadership Committee, which had given $35,000 to Cox’s 2006 election. During his failed run for governor in 2010, Cox ran an ad gleefully declaring how he “led the fight” against the ACA, and now, as he tries another run for governor 15 years later, Cox has cheered the passage of the Trump tax law that is causing hundreds of thousands of Michiganders to lose Medicaid coverage.
- Perry Johnson praised Trump’s Medicaid-cutting law and called it a “win for Michigan.” Earlier this year, Johnson refused repeated requests from Bridge Michigan to outline his stances on health care and only “provided a brief statement that did not directly address any of the health care issues raised by Bridge readers.” In 2024, the “quality guru’s” company was sued for a massive medical data breach.
- John James kept the door open to ending Medicaid expansion entirely in Michigan after voting for Trump’s toxic tax law that cut Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of Michiganders. James has forced healthcare prices to skyrocket by voting for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill which failed to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits—then he voted against a bipartisan bill that would’ve extended the ACA tax credits. James previously called for repealing the ACA entirely and labeled it a “monstrosity.” With healthcare costs rising, fewer Michiganders have enrolled in ACA plans this year and many are struggling to make ends meet.
“Mike Cox, Perry Johnson, and John James all support cutting healthcare and forcing higher prices onto Michiganders,” said Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson Derrick Honeyman. “Whether it’s voting for Trump’s Medicaid-cutting budget or fighting against the Affordable Care Act, each of these candidates has made slashing healthcare a central piece of their career—and it will be on full display on the debate stages this week. Michigan Democrats look forward to defeating whichever one of these healthcare-cutting candidates makes it to the general election.”
