MaddowBlog-On keeping health care coverage affordable, the GOP's Steve Scalise gives away the game [View all]

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Last edited Mon Oct 13, 2025, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans are ready for “thoughtful conversations” about the ACA’s future. That’s not, however, what the majority leader said.

If Dems were solely interested in politics and the midterms, they could let Republicans kill off the ACA subsidies, let consumers suffer, watch the public blame the GOP, and reap the rewards of the election-year backlash.

Instead, they’re at least trying to govern. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-10-13T19:24:11.763Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/keeping-health-care-coverage-affordable-gops-steve-scalise-gives-away-rcna237304

In relation to the ACA and the Covid-era subsidies that made coverage even more affordable for millions of American families, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters on Capitol Hill on Friday afternoon:

It’s not worked for families. You don’t answer that by propping it up with hundreds of billions of dollars of insurance company subsidies. Why would you keep pouring billions more tax dollars into a sinkhole when you can find a better way? We actually are working on better alternatives right now to lower premiums for families. That’s where the focus should be, not propping up a failed product called Obamacare.

The Louisiana Republican added that, from his perspective, 90% of the House Republican conference sees the Affordable Care Act and its enhanced insurance subsidies as a failure.

To the extent that governing realities matter, Scalise has the substance backwards: The reason that the ACA has reached all-time highs in popularity and efficacy is that the Covid-era subsidies approved by Democrats made a good thing better, lowering consumer costs significantly. That’s not a “sinkhole”; it’s the opposite......

With this in mind, it’s the majority party that finds itself under pressure. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the Trump White House and a growing number of congressional Republicans “are worried that Democrats’ demand to boost Obamacare as part of any bill to reopen the government is proving salient with voters — including their own. Republican voters will be disproportionately hurt by a spike in health insurance premiums if the measure is not included. And many of them are well aware of what’s at risk.”

Those looking for a way out of this mess, however, will have to look for a while longer: The House speaker’s office announced Friday that Johnson decided to give members yet another week off, even as the House Democratic minority made plans to return to Capitol Hill, eager to work on a solution. Watch this space.