After successfully holding strong in the face of a Democrat-led government shutdown over Obamacare, a cabal of House Republicans is now waiving the white flag on the issue.
On Thursday, nearly three dozen Democrats and Republicans introduced a proposal to extend taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidies. As Federalist Senior Contributor Christopher Jacobs has regularly reported in these pages, these Biden-era subsidies — which are set to expire at the end of this year — have been a complete and total disaster.
Spearheaded by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Jen Kiggins, R-Va., the measure “would extend and reduce the tax credits in a two-step process, requiring two separate votes by Congress,” according to The New York Times. While the first vote “would extend the tax credits for a year with some modifications, including the addition of a new income limit,” the second vote “would implement what the group described as ‘more significant reforms,’ including potentially eliminating $0 premiums, with exceptions for need-based support.”
During a press conference introducing the proposal, Democrat-turned-Republican Jeff Van Drew laid out his best case for forcing taxpayers to keep bankrolling this broken system. The New Jersey congressman’s explanation as a self-declared “conservative” was (naturally) unconvincing.
“I do not like the Affordable Care Act. … And it’s fraught with all kinds of problems, there’s a lot of corruption … But that’s not the point today, and that’s not the discussion for today,” Van Drew said. These subsidies haven’t “been good. But ladies and gentlemen, we have a responsibility. … So, I believe that we have two responsibilities. One, to have a bridge for the American people … that would allow them to keep their health insurance. I think the second responsibility we have is to do much, much better with health care.”
If you’re left wondering what should happen at the end of the next proposed subsidy extension, you’re not alone. As my colleague Eddie Scarry observed in response to Van Drew’s comments, “So you’re creating a ‘bridge’ by extending the subsidies but you have no plan for what happens when that extension again runs out? Literally a bridge to nowhere. Laughable.”
Perhaps the richest part of Van Drew’s remarks, however, is the part in which he whined about wishing lawmakers could’ve been working on health care rather than having “43 days off” because of the government shutdown.
Forty-three days? What about the 15 years Republicans have spent campaigning on “repealing and replacing” Obamacare? It’s 2025, and the GOP still doesn’t have a plan to revoke the disastrous law and institute a market-oriented solution that fosters competition and naturally drives down costs.
Fortunately, the Gottheimer-Kiggins proposal seems unlikely to make any significant headway, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., shooting down the idea on Thursday. (House Republican leadership is reportedly expected to introduce its own health care package sometime next week, although it’s currently unknown if that proposal will include any extension of the Obamacare subsidies.)
But whether or not the “bipartisan” proposal passes is beside the point. That a group of Republicans would take it upon themselves to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and hand Democrats exactly what they’ve been wanting is a disgrace.
Then again, it’s not shocking when considering that the Republican Party has no ability or interest in governing and no collective vision for what success for the country looks like. By every measure, it’s more useless than that raccoon that broke into an ABC store, got drunk, and passed out on the bathroom floor.
But according to House Speaker Mike Johnson, everything is just hunky dory. The Louisiana Republican recently claimed that the current GOP-run Congress is “the most productive and consequential Congress in our lifetime.”
If by “most productive and consequential,” he means squandering a rare opportunity to enact real and significant change for the American people, then he’s absolutely right.