The White House put out a fact sheet today highlighting record-breaking enrollment under the Affordable Care Act during the Biden administration. During the current enrollment period, almost 24 million Americans have signed up for health insurance plans under Obamacare, meaning the number of Americans covered through the ACA has almost doubled since President Biden took office.
These record enrollment numbers are the result of several Biden administration initiatives, the White House said, primarily their successes in working with Democrats in Congress to pass legislation that expanded federal subsidies to help cut the cost of premiums. Those subsidies are set to expire this year. In his statement, Biden urged Congress to “double down on the progress we have made and ensure Americans have access to quality, affordable health care by extending the ACA premium tax credit this year.”
He also warned that his administration’s efforts to expand coverage “are now in danger” if Republicans don’t extend the enhanced premium tax credits, a move that some in Republican leadership have recently called into question, according to the New York Times.
But even before the election, Republican leadership was already signaling an interest in resurrecting Trump’s first-term efforts to repeal Obamacare. This fall, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was caught on video being a bit too explicit about where the Republican Party actually stands when it comes to gutting the ACA — too explicit for October of an election year, that is. At the time, Johnson appeared to suggest that Republicans are interested in letting the popular subsidies expire and/or looking into substantially gutting the ACA all together. Here’s an excerpt from our coverage at the time:
“Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson said on Monday, according to a video obtained by NBC News.
“No Obamacare?” an event attendee asked Johnson.
“No Obamacare,” Johnson responded, reportedly rolling his eyes. “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”
“We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state. These agencies have been weaponized against the people. It’s crushing the free market; it’s like a boot on the neck of job creators and entrepreneurs and risk takers. And so health care is one of the sectors, and we need this across the board,” Johnson continued. “And Trump’s going to go big. I mean, he’s only going to have one more term. Can’t run for re-election. And so he’s going to be thinking about legacy, and we’re going to fix these things.”
The Trump campaign attempted to do some cleanup almost immediately after Johnson’s remarks surfaced. Trump was intentionally vague on the campaign trail about his stance on the ACA, aware of the popularity of the program under the expanded subsidies — so vague that his vagueness became a meme:
“Obamacare was lousy health care. Always was. It’s not very good today,” Trump said during the debate. “And what I said, that if we come up with something, and we are working on things, we’re going to do it and we’re going to replace it.”
When pressed about the specifics of his replacement plan, the former president did not offer anything beyond the now-infamous allusion to having “concepts of a plan.”
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Hateful people saying and doing hateful things. The Republican Party remains a crime against humanity, hurting people every day, sometimes by ignorance alone, often by ignorance and intent.
OT: Brittany Pettersen, a freshman Dem in the House, is about to go on maternity leave and Speaker Skippy McMaggot has denied her the right to proxy vote. What do you think about that? I’m gonna go eat my dinner. I’ll be back later.
Outrageous.
If Speaker G-dbother really believed all that fetus-is-a-person malarkey, he’d give her two votes!
Think of the possibilities of twins! In all seriousness, someone needs to call this out. I bet Scalise got to proxy vote after (1) gunshot wound, (2) cancer treatment.
If they do replace it, it will be called Trump Care.
Obama’s name must be removed from history like anything that does not have Trump’s name.
We will become the United World of Trump.