While the Republican Party faces backlash Government shutdown Above them He refused to keep health insurance more affordableRepublicans in Congress now insist they definitely have a plan for health care reform, but they won’t say what it is.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that they, along with President Donald Trump, want to make health care more affordable for everyone. They said believe them now, even though they’ve made the same promise for more than a decade without launching any ideas other than repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“The president wants to fix Obamacare and give people higher-quality, more affordable health insurance,” Thune said He said Thursday morning on CNBC, without providing details about how this happened.
“We have a lot of ideas on the table,” Johnson said in response to a C-SPAN viewer who asked about Republican ideas for lowering health care costs. “We have tried to advance some of those ideas, and we will do so in the coming days.” “Health care is a big problem in the country. Everyone recognizes it. And we’re not just talking about it — we’re putting ideas on the table, and there’s a lot. It takes a long time. I have a 90-minute slideshow I could show you…but trust me, Republicans are working on this around the clock. We’re doing it all the time. We’ve got a lot of ideas to do it.”
Johnson later He added“There are a lot of improvements needed. Obamacare didn’t do what it promised. … We have to fix that. In the big, beautiful bill … we added a lot of provisions, for example, to reform Medicaid.”
First, Johnson’s claim that Republicans are “reforming.”[ed]“Medicaid is hiding the truth. Their supposed reforms are expected to push millions off the Medicaid rolls and Disrupting rural hospitals and Long-term health care facilities that rely on Medicaid funding.
But more than that, why should anyone believe Republicans have some magical health care fix when they’ve been making the same promise for over 15 years without producing the goods?
Who can forget that Trump, when pressed during the 2024 campaign about what exactly was in his health care plan, said he didn’t have anything concrete but instead had “Plan concepts“Just believe him, guys! He’ll get it in two weeks.”
Republicans once an act The attempt to pass the health care plan came in 2017, when Trump was in the White House and Republicans controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate. Their so-called plan would be like that Tens of millions of people were kicked off their insurance And it will be Make insurance more expensive For people with pre-existing conditions. Pressure to pass the bill to fail Amazingly amid widespread popular protests.
Ultimately, the fact that the current government shutdown is focused on health care can only be a good thing for Democrats.
Opinion polls consistently show that voters Democrats are more trusted than Republicans to reform health care. The ACA remains Widely popular. And health care positions are largely Republican It led to the Republican Party losing control of the House of Representatives In 2018, it was Trump’s first midterm election as president.
Determining health insurance premiums More than double On average, if the Republican-controlled Congress doesn’t extend expanded benefits in the next few weeks, it’s not hard to see how health care could become a major issue again in the 2026 midterms, much to the GOP’s chagrin.
For their part, Democrats are exploiting Republicans’ lies on health care.
“He doesn’t have a plan for health care. Republicans have never had a plan for health care — all they’re doing is cutting Medicaid, raising health insurance rates, and kicking people out of coverage,” Rep. Don Beyer, Democrat of Virginia, said. books In a post on X, Johnson asserted on C-SPAN that Republicans would reform health care.
“We’ve gone more than a decade with nothing but rescind votes and talking points,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee said. “They’ve had years to figure this out, but it’s clear Republicans still don’t have a plan.” books In a post on
As the kids say, no lies detected.