Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday said that health care needs “real reform” if Congress were to renew the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are expiring at the end of the year.
“The Covid-era Obamacare subsidy that they’re all talking about that’s supposedly the issue of the day doesn’t expire until the end of December. And by the way, it is the Democrats who created that subsidy, who put the expiration date on it,” Johnson said during a press conference.
“They put an end date on it because they knew it was supposed to be related to Covid, and it’s become a boondoggle. When you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase,” he continued.
The Speaker of the House spoke during a press conference one day before the Senate will return to D.C., as Democrats have shut down the government over expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Democrats first enhanced these subsidies with the $1.9 trillion Biden-era coronavirus stimulus plan, the American Rescue Plan. The Democrats then extended these subsidies with the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which will expire at the end of the year.
The Speaker said that, should Congress compromise and agree to continue the subsidies, American health care would need substantial reform.
He remarked, “If indeed the subsidy is going to be continued, it needs real reform. But there’s a lot of ideas on the table to do that.”
Asked by NBC News about calls to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the Louisiana Republican said, “Obamacare failed the American people,” and said it needs “dramatic reform.” However, he cautioned that he has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from Republican efforts to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare bill during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
He said, “Can we completely repeal and replace Obamacare? Many of us are skeptical about that now, because the roots are so deep. It was really sinister, the way, in my view, the way it was created. I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”
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