Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Newsmax on Monday that once the government shutdown ends, House Republicans are readying ideas to tackle rising healthcare costs.
The House on Sept. 19 passed a clean continuing resolution 217-212 that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21, but the measure quickly stalled in the Senate amid a broader fight over Affordable Care Act subsidies.
The pandemic-era subsidies, which were created by Democrats, are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, the outlet reported.
During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Speaker Mike Johnson declined to specify when the House might consider a bipartisan Senate proposal to fund the federal government through January 30.
The Senate advanced the measure Sunday night by clearing a key procedural hurdle, though a final vote is still expected to take place in the coming days.
Johnson noted that House Republicans had included provisions to address rising healthcare costs in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but said Democrats ultimately removed them during negotiations
“The problem is that we are subsidizing very wealthy insurance companies,” Johnson said. “That is not helping costs go down. It’s driving premiums up even higher. So, Republicans want to fix the broken system.
“We don’t want to throw good money at a broken and failing system. And the Affordable Care Act has been that since it was signed into law, passed by the Democrats alone back in 2010,” the Louisiana Republican added.
“We’ve got to reduce the cost of healthcare and the cost of living, and Republicans are the ones that have the ideas to do that,” he said.
Johnson stated that the OBBB included a provision which, according to him, would have decreased healthcare premiums by 12.7%.
“But the Democrats fought to take it out of the bill,” he said. “So, if they cared so much about healthcare costs, they shouldn’t be fighting provisions like that.
“We’re putting together some ideas that will drive the premiums down because healthcare is too expensive in this country. It’s too expensive because the Democrats built a system that doesn’t work. So, we need to look at the root causes of the costs that have skyrocketed and address that for the people,” Johnson told Van Sustren.
“Merely subsidizing something is not the is not the answer. When the government subsidizes something, it almost always means it’s not working. And that’s the problem,” he said.
With the subsidies set to expire on Dec. 31, Johnson said, “it’s an urgent matter for us, and it has been, which is why we put it into the bill that we passed in the early summer. And the Democrats fought to take it out.”
“So, we’re reintroducing some of these ideas,” he said. “There’s a lot of ideas on how to drive the cost down, and we have November and December to work on that.
“We’re going to have to get a bipartisan consensus on some of this. And so, we’ll be presenting our ideas and putting them on the table,” he continued.
“The Democrats, this is very important to point out, they don’t have any reform ideas at all. Their argument is they want a completely unreformed continuation. They would do it permanently, most of them on government just subsidizing the insurance companies. And that is not the solution,” he said.
“We’re going to be educating the population, and along the way, as we do this, come up with reforms that will actually solve the problem and not make it worse.”
Johnson, in a separate interview with Fox News, urged GOP members of the House to return to Washington before an expected vote on a measure to reopen the government on Wednesday.
“We’re going to plan on voting, on being here, at least by Wednesday,” Johnson said. “It is possible that things could shift a little bit later in the week, but right now we think we’re on track for a vote on Wednesday. So we need you here.”
Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been working hard at making herself a national celebrity on her “Fight The Oligarchy” tour with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and with other events she has hosted, but it may cost her the job that put her in the spotlight to begin with.
While she has been on the road elevating her profile as she mulls campaigning for higher office, the area she was elected to represent has decayed into a crime-ridden cesspool, and voters are furious with her, The New York Post reported.
Since she was first elected in 2019, major crime rose by a staggering 70 percent in her Bronx / Queens district.
“The 110th Precinct in Queens, which covers part of the infamous ‘Market of Sweethearts’ human-trafficking and prostitution mecca on Roosevelt Avenue, saw a 105% surge, the highest increase of any NYC precinct in that period,” The Post said in its report.
“Major crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft,” the outlet continued.
The 115th precinct, which is also in the representative’s district, saw a whopping increase of 85 percent in major crimes, and her constituents are frustrated with their celebrity representative.
“She’s not doing s–t. She doesn’t live in the neighborhood, she doesn’t care,” Elmhurst resident Guadelupe Alvarez, a former supporter of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, said to The Post.
Alvarez said she used to have dreams of building a life in the community, but those days are over.
“I can’t wait to get – pardon my language – the f–k out of here. It makes me so sad that they’ve done that to push me out of my neighborhood. And I’m not the only one. . . . I could never have a family here,” she said.
She told The Post that she attempted to talk to the representative about the issue at a town hall last year, but it did not go as planned.
“I asked, ‘Are you aware of how horrible it’s gotten? When was the last time you were in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst?’ She ignored me and told me, ‘You can ask this person questions’ … who I guess was her assistant. She did a very silent exit through the back,” Alvarez said.
“I think it’s disrespectful. You’re there because of people from my community, and you’re not doing s–t for our community,” she said.
Republican City Council candidate Ramses Frias also shredded the representative when he spoke to The Post.
“You have a mouth to speak up. People are suffering. They’re scared to go outside,” he said.
And her rhetoric on race and defunding the police has also had an effect on her district.
“Nobody wants to be a police officer, it’s been so villainized,” said Manhattan Institute Director of Policing and Public Safety, Hannah Meyers, said. “And that affects every function that the police do.
“It’s her district, she’s supposed to be looking out for people there. She has such a myopic focus on race,” she said, pointing to the fact that most of the victims of crime in her district are black or Hispanic. “You’re not helping the victims of crime by talking about how the system is racist.
“Rhetoric is really powerful,” she said.
In June 2020, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez declared, “Defunding police means defunding police,” and she has since continued that rhetoric, saying in 2022 that “police budgets have nothing to do with crime levels.”
“She talks about the whole fighting the oligarchy, and that’s what she’s all about – the poor people. And yet most people in her district are fearful, they don’t feel like they can walk out the door without encountering a drug dealer or a purse snatcher or a hooker,” National Police Association’s Betsy Brantner Smith said.
“And that goes against everything that you know she stands for. If you don’t feel safe, you’re not free,” she said.