WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., slammed the expiring Obamacare subsidies at the center of the government funding standoff as a “boondoggle” as the shutdown approaches the two-week mark with no end in sight.
“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,” he told reporters at a press conference Monday, the 13th day of the shutdown.
“They put an end date on it because they knew it was supposed to be related to Covid, and it’s become a boondoggle,” Johnson added. “When you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.”
Johnson’s comments escalate the battle one day before the Senate is slated to return to Washington, albeit with no clear path to end the shutdown. It will test the patience and resolve of both parties as federal employees — including members of law enforcement, air traffic controllers and TSA staff — are slated to miss paychecks
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has maintained that Democrats won’t relent and support a short-term GOP funding bill through Nov. 21 unless it includes their priorities, most notably an extension of the health care funds. The money in question, first passed in 2021, limits premiums of a benchmark insurance plan to 8.5% of the buyer’s income.
“Speaker Johnson chose vacation over fixing this healthcare crisis,” Schumer recently wrote on X. “In his own state, 85,000 Louisianans will lose their health insurance and thousands will see their premiums skyrocket. But he’s keeping the government shut down instead of fixing this.”
Johnson has kept the Republican-led House out of session since Sept. 19, and he is continuing the recess through this week, drawing heavy criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans who say they want to return to work.
The speaker said Monday that at a minimum, “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.”
He didn’t get specific, but Republicans have discussed a range of ideas such as an income cap for eligibility, a requirement that every Obamacare enrollee pays something into the system, a phaseout after two or three years and stricter abortion limits.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the author of a bill to extend the Obamacare, or Affordable Care Act, funds permanently, said she’s open to a negotiation on the details.
“There are a number of changes that can be made to the program to address some of the concerns,” she said. “One of the things, though, I think we need to be very thoughtful about is where you start to make changes that show a dramatic drop-off in numbers of people who are helped. And that needs to be a longer discussion that people need to really look at some data and get the information before making decisions about that.”
But Shaheen flatly ruled out stricter abortion restrictions, saying existing law already blocks Obamacare funding for abortion — despite some conservatives wanting to make it more stringent.
“That’s a nonstarter,” she said. “It’s not an issue. We already dealt with that issue.”
Shaheen, a longtime critic of shutdowns who is standing with Schumer in opposition to the GOP bill, said it’s not viable to wait until the end of the year to act on the Obamacare funding, as insurers are setting rates for 2026 now.
“People are getting their premium increases right now, and it’s one more thing on top of the cost of food and electricity and rent and child care and all the other expenses that people are incurring,” she told NBC News.
Republicans control the Senate by a margin of 53-47, but they need 60 votes to break a filibuster and pass a funding bill. They are currently five Democratic votes short, and have seen no movement since the shutdown began Oct. 1.
In response to Republicans branding it the “Schumer shutdown,” the Democratic leader replied, “Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the White House.”
Implied in Schumer’s comments is that Republicans can abolish the 60-vote threshold in order to reopen the government if they refuse to negotiate to get Democratic votes. But GOP party leaders are deeply reluctant to use the “nuclear option” on the legislative filibuster, as that would permanently change the Senate and set a precedent conservatives fear they’ll regret when Democrats return to power.
“The super-majority requirement is something that makes the Senate the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Friday. “And honestly, if we had done that, there’s a whole lot of bad things that could have been done by the other side.”
“If the Democrats had won the majority, they probably would have tried to nuke the filibuster, and then you’d have four new United States senators from Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. You’d have a packed Supreme Court,” Thune said. “You’d have abortion on demand.”
Johnson also weighed in on growing calls on the right to repeal Obamacare, a long-standing goal of conservatives, and said in a lengthy answer to NBC News that “Obamacare failed the American people” and that the system needs “dramatic reform.” He said he has “PTSD” from the GOP’s repeal effort in 2017 and remains frustrated that it failed.
“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,” he said Monday. “I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”
Justin Chermol, a spokesman for the House Democratic campaign arm, responded, “Mike Johnson just admitted the GOP’s ‘health care plan’ isn’t only about slashing Medicaid and shuttering rural hospitals. Republicans are still desperate to repeal the Affordable Care Act and rip away protections for people with pre-existing conditions — as the Speaker made clear this morning while reliving his trauma after failing to take away health care in 2017.”
One day earlier, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., posted on X, “House Republicans are now scheming to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And take away healthcare from tens of millions of Americans.”
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