It was almost exactly a year ago, as Election Day 2024 approached, when House Speaker Mike Johnson unexpectedly targeted the Affordable Care Act, telling a Pennsylvania audience to expect “massive” health care changes in the United States if Donald Trump returned to power. “Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” the GOP leader added.
The House speaker later claimed that he was taken out of context, but a video from the event didn’t do him any favors. When an attendee asked at the event, “No Obamacare?” Congress’ top Republican leader replied, “No Obamacare.”
A year later, the Louisiana congressman is still leaning into his opposition to the ACA. NBC News reported on developments on Capitol Hill as this week got underway.
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 speaker said Monday that at a minimum, ‘If indeed the subsidy is going to be continued, it needs real reform.’
The House speaker didn’t elaborate on what, precisely, “real” health care reform might look like, though given the larger context, he probably meant “reform that Republicans like.”
For good measure, Johnson went on to tell reporters that the ACA was created in a “really sinister” way, adding, “I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”
I’ll confess, I’ve been covering the fight over the Affordable Care Act closely since its inception, and I thought I’d heard just about every GOP attack imaginable, but the idea that Democrats deliberately set up their own health care reform law to “implode” is new — creative and bonkers in equal measure.
Nevertheless, Johnson’s rhetoric came on the heels of his fellow Republican leader, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, declaring that for 90% of the GOP conference, the ACA is a “sinkhole” and a “failed product.”
For some readers, this might seem anodyne and predictable. After all, “Republicans don’t like Obamacare” isn’t exactly stop-the-presses news.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: As the ongoing government shutdown begins its third week, Democrats’ position boils down to: “We need to protect the Affordable Care Act from Republicans who oppose the system and want to undermine the needs of the millions of American families who rely on it.”
GOP leaders, meanwhile, are effectively replying, “Yep.” As for the political impact, The Washington Post reported this week on the broader fight, noting that Republicans have tried more than 70 times over the past 15 years to weaken or kill the ACA — and their campaign against the popular and effective reform law “keeps backfiring.” The article included this anecdote: Longtime Florida insurance agent Alan Reynolds, 65, predicts many of his customers will allow their policies to lapse when the price hikes become clear. An independent who leans conservative, Reynolds, of Port St. Lucie, called the Affordable Care Act flawed but said he favors the continuation of the enhanced subsidies ‘and not pulling the rug out from under people.’ The Post’s piece went on to note that the insurance agent’s own family will likely be affected, with monthly coverage costs that will more than double for his family if Republicans refuse to protect the existing subsidies. “I voted for Trump,” Reynolds told the Post. “I didn’t expect this.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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