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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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The pandemic-era subsidies, which were created by Democrats, are scheduled to expire at the end of the year,\u00a0the outlet reported.<\/p>\n
During an appearance on \u201cThe Record with Greta Van Susteren,\u201d Speaker Mike Johnson declined to specify when the House might consider a bipartisan Senate proposal to fund the federal government through January 30.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that we are subsidizing very wealthy insurance companies,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThat is not helping costs go down. It\u2019s driving premiums up even higher. So, Republicans want to fix the broken system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t 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,\u201d the Louisiana Republican added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to reduce the cost of healthcare and the cost of living, and Republicans are the ones that have the ideas to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Johnson stated that the OBBB included a provision which, according to him, would have decreased healthcare premiums by 12.7%.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the Democrats fought to take it out of the bill,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, if they cared so much about healthcare costs, they shouldn\u2019t be fighting provisions like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting together some ideas that will drive the premiums down because healthcare is too expensive in this country. It\u2019s too expensive because the Democrats built a system that doesn\u2019t work. So, we need to look at the root causes of the costs that have skyrocketed and address that for the people,\u201d Johnson told Van Sustren.<\/p>\n
\u201cMerely subsidizing something is not the is not the answer. When the government subsidizes something, it almost always means it\u2019s not working. And that\u2019s the problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With the subsidies set to expire on Dec. 31, Johnson said, \u201cit\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we\u2019re reintroducing some of these ideas,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of ideas on how to drive the cost down, and we have November and December to work on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to get a bipartisan consensus on some of this. And so, we\u2019ll be presenting our ideas and putting them on the table,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Democrats, this is very important to point out, they don\u2019t 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to plan on voting, on being here, at least by Wednesday,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt is possible that things could shift a little bit later in the week, but right now we think we\u2019re on track for a vote on Wednesday. So we need you here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been working hard at making herself a national celebrity on her \u201cFight The Oligarchy\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Since she was first elected in 2019, major crime rose by a staggering 70 percent in her Bronx \/ Queens district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 110th Precinct in Queens, which covers part of the infamous \u2018Market of Sweethearts\u2019 human-trafficking and prostitution mecca on Roosevelt Avenue, saw a 105% surge, the highest increase of any NYC precinct in that period,\u201d The Post said in its report.<\/p>\n
\u201cMajor crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft,\u201d the outlet continued.<\/p>\n
The 115th precinct, which is also in the representative\u2019s district, saw a whopping increase of 85 percent in major crimes, and her constituents are frustrated with their celebrity representative.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not doing s\u2013t. She doesn\u2019t live in the neighborhood, she doesn\u2019t care,\u201d Elmhurst resident Guadelupe Alvarez, a former supporter of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, said to The Post.<\/p>\n
Alvarez said she used to have dreams of building a life in the community, but those days are over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to get \u2013 pardon my language \u2013 the f\u2013k out of here. It makes me so sad that they\u2019ve done that to push me out of my neighborhood. And I\u2019m not the only one. . . . I could never have a family here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked, \u2018Are you aware of how horrible it\u2019s gotten? When was the last time you were in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst?\u2019 She ignored me and told me, \u2018You can ask this person questions\u2019 \u2026 who I guess was her assistant. She did a very silent exit through the back,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s disrespectful. You\u2019re there because of people from my community, and you\u2019re not doing s\u2013t for our community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Republican City Council candidate Ramses Frias also shredded the representative when he spoke to The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a mouth to speak up. People are suffering. They\u2019re scared to go outside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And her rhetoric on race and defunding the police has also had an effect on her district.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody wants to be a police officer, it\u2019s been so villainized,\u201d said Manhattan Institute Director of Policing and Public Safety, Hannah Meyers, said. \u201cAnd that affects every function that the police do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s her district, she\u2019s supposed to be looking out for people there. She has such a myopic focus on race,\u201d she said, pointing to the fact that most of the victims of crime in her district are black or Hispanic. \u201cYou\u2019re not helping the victims of crime by talking about how the system is racist.<\/p>\n
\u201cRhetoric is really powerful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In June 2020, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez declared, \u201cDefunding police means defunding police,\u201d and she has since continued that rhetoric, saying in 2022 that \u201cpolice budgets have nothing to do with crime levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe talks about the whole fighting the oligarchy, and that\u2019s what she\u2019s all about \u2013 the poor people. And yet most people in her district are fearful, they don\u2019t feel like they can walk out the door without encountering a drug dealer or a purse snatcher or a hooker,\u201d National Police Association\u2019s Betsy Brantner Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that goes against everything that you know she stands for. If you don\u2019t feel safe, you\u2019re not free,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t