The media decided to make Sen. Joni Ernst the poster person for the millions who will lose healthcare. Why did they give the real villains a pass over the years?
Give “We’re all gonna die” Sen Joni Ernst a break.
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Summary
Sen. Joni Ernst’s flippant “we’re all going to die” response to constituents worried about Medicaid cuts has generated viral outrage. Yet, the bigger story is the Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which would strip health coverage from millions while extending tax cuts for the wealthy.
Key points
- Ernst doubled down with a mock-apology video filmed in a cemetery, reinforcing perceptions of callousness.
- The Congressional Budget Office estimates the GOP bill will push 8.7 million people off Medicaid and leave 7.6 million more uninsured.
- One in five Iowans rely on Medicaid, yet Ernst backs deeper eligibility hurdles and work requirements.
- Her remark spurred Democrat J.D. Scholten to launch a 2026 challenge, framing her comment as proof Republicans disregard working families.
- The controversy diverts attention from the bill’s trillion-dollar transfer of wealth upward through renewed 2017 tax cuts.
Progressives see Ernst’s morbid quip not as a gaffe but as a deliberate distraction from a legislative assault on public health, a maneuver straight from the playbook that swaps empathy for austerity while billionaires pocket permanent tax breaks.
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The viral clip of Sen. Joni Ernst shrugging, “We all are going to die,” at an Iowa town hall resembles political theater more than genuine dialogue. Outrage flowed swiftly—rightly so, given the setting was a discussion of Medicaid cuts that could hasten avoidable deaths. Yet dwelling on the senator’s gallows humor risks missing the material stakes: Republicans are fast-tracking the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), a legislative leviathan that hollows the social safety net to finance another round of trickle-down tax giveaways. In short, Ernst’s line is the shiny object; the bill is the dagger.
Austerity wrapped in populism
OBBB extends Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts—already skewed to corporations and high earners—while imposing work requirements and tighter eligibility screens on Medicaid and SNAP. The Congressional Budget Office projects 8.7 million people will lose Medicaid coverage and 7.6 million more will become uninsured within a decade, outcomes that independent health-economics research links to higher mortality, increased medical debt, and rural-hospital closures. Rather than “curbing waste,” the reforms weaponize poverty as punishment, echoing the 1990s welfare overhaul that scholars later tied to spikes in extreme hardship.
The Iowa contradiction
Ernst’s home state relies heavily on Medicaid; roughly 20 percent of Iowans, including half of the state’s children and two-thirds of nursing-home residents, depend on the program for basic care. Slashing coverage thus harms not faceless abstractions but neighbors in rural counties already struggling with hospital deserts and rising opioid overdoses. Economists at the non-partisan Iowa Policy Project estimate that every federal Medicaid dollar generates $1.70 in state economic activity—funds that keep clinics open and jobs local. Ernst’s breezy fatalism, then, is more than rhetorical; it signals acceptance of preventable loss, whether of life or community infrastructure.
Political blowback
Her comment provided an opening for Democrat J.D. Scholten, who announced a 2026 Senate bid within days, citing the senator’s “cold dismissal” of constituents’ fears. Roll Call Scholten’s framing resonates with Midwestern voters who resent Washington elites undermining programs their families tangibly need. If Ernst’s soundbite becomes shorthand for Republican indifference, OBBB could inflame the very electoral map it aims to secure, much as Paul Ryan’s 2011 voucher plan galvanized opposition and cost the GOP dozens of House seats.
The media-narrative trap
Corporate outlets have focused on the spectacle—the cemetery video, the social-media memes—rather than the bill’s structural harms. This imbalance mirrors coverage patterns scholars like Robert McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, identify as “horse-race sensationalism,” where personality eclipses policy. When coverage finally turns to OBBB, journalists often parrot deficit-hawk talking points, ignoring the fundamental accounting truth: permanent tax cuts for the wealthy dwarf projected savings from Medicaid “reform.” The Guardian, NPR, and The Washington Post offer exceptions, detailing the CBO numbers and human stakes, but cable-news soundbites still dominate public perception.
Republicans have been committing “social murder” from the inception of the Affordable Care Act. Ironically, it is Joni Ernst whom the media and many politicians have centered as the representation of a Republican Party devoid of compassion and humanity itself. Why weren’t Republican politicians like Greg Abbott and other governors and Republican Legislatures who chose the deaths of their uninsured citizens over accepting the Medicaid Expansion to the Affordable Care Act that would have kept them alive? Their crime against humanity has been long-lived and quantifiable. The Senator’s commentary, while it shows the moral disregard that the GOP has for Americans, is but a distraction./
A progressive reframing
Progressives can resist this diversion by recentering the conversation on lived realities:
- Humanize the data. Spotlight patients who will lose chemotherapy coverage or parents who will ration insulin—stories that convert abstract millions into relatable faces.
- Expose the redistribution. Connect tax extensions for ultra-rich heirs to simultaneous cuts in school lunches and elder care—class warfare made explicit.
- Demand accountability. Push local media to ask Ernst and OBBB co-sponsors the concrete question: How many uninsured deaths per tax-cut dollar is acceptable?
- Link to broader struggles. Tie Medicaid defense to fights for union wages and climate resilience, building an intersectional coalition that rejects austerity as a false necessity.
- Make it clear that what Republicans have done is “social murder,” and OBBB will just be an extension of it.
Conclusion
Sen. Ernst’s offhand remark that “we’re all going to die” may be accurate in the cosmic sense, yet it cannot excuse policymaking that accelerates death for the sake of plutocratic profit. By fixating on the phrase, pundits risk absolving the process that renders it prophetic. The task for an engaged public is straightforward: look past the smokescreen, interrogate the ledger, and defend the programs that translate moral ideals into material security. In doing so, progressives keep eyes on the ball—and hands ready to block the swing of austerity’s bat.
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