You want more scary stuff from “leaderless” GOP Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) running to win and see Trump win, too?
This headline
story and contents should scare the living daylights out of all of us here from the
WASHINGTON POST also here from USA TODAY with this headline:
“Mike Johnson vows major
changes to Affordable Care Act if Trump wins election”
House
Speaker Mike Johnson pledged “massive reform” of the Affordable Care Act if
Trump is elected president, reopening a politically sensitive policy issue for
Republicans a week before Election Day.
Johnson appeared at a campaign event Monday for a Republican
House candidate in PA, and he told the attendees that GOP leaders are again
weighing how to overhaul the 14-year-old ACA law, which provides health coverage to
over 50 million Americans and has been a frequent target of Republican
repeal efforts, today over 60% approval up from 38%.
Johnson said, wearing
a personalized jacket emblazoned with the Trump-Vance campaign logo (photo
above): “Health-care reform’s going
to be a big part of the agenda. A
caucus of Republican physicians has shared proposals with him and that GOP
leaders hope to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state and fix things.”
An attendee asked: “No
Obamacare?” (Using the term popularized by Republicans to describe the
health law since 2010).
Johnson responded: “No
Obamacare, 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.”
The ACA, which Democrats enacted in 2010, has become one of the party’s more popular achievements after initially being perceived as a political liability.
Sixty-two percent of adults had favorable views of the law
in April, up from 38% a decade earlier, according to polling by KFF.
The law and its health insurance exchanges since established
more than a decade ago continues to help lower the national uninsured rate to
record lows in recent years. Kamala Harris has promised to expand enrollment
through the law if elected president.
Republicans, meanwhile, had mounted over dozens of efforts and votes in Congress to overturn the law. Trump
won the presidency in 2016 by pledging to “repeal Obamacare.”
But several Trump-led
repeal efforts fell short — with the Senate in July 2017 coming one vote away
from overturning the Affordable Care Act — and the law’s near-death catalyzed
new support for it.
That historical one-vote
moment – July 28, 2017 is when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) did the best thing ever
with his thumbs down “No vote” we will keep the ACA – his vote was needed – he
saved the program and he died one year later from brain cancer himself. Watch the short video and
remember that hero:
The backlash to Republicans’ repeal efforts also helped
Democrats win back control of the House in 2018, prompting GOP leaders in
recent years to avoid talking about doing away with the law. Trump’s running
mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), last month even praised Trump as a good steward of
the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats remain eager to highlight GOP's past
pledges to “repeal Obamacare,” with the Harris campaign and its allies on
Tuesday night portraying Johnson’s comments as a vow to do away with the
Affordable Care Act.
Sarafina Chitika, a Harris campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement:
“Speaker Mike Johnson is making it clear
— if Donald Trump wins, he and his Project 2025 allies in Congress will make
sure there is ‘no Obamacare. That
means higher health-care costs for millions of families and ripping away
protections from Americans with preexisting conditions like diabetes, asthma,
or cancer.”
Then Leslie Dach, the chairman of Protect Our Care, a
Democratic-aligned health-care advocacy group, wrote in a statement: “Johnson finally told the truth about Donald
Trump and his MAGA Republican allies’ agenda for health care in their first 100
days. They want to repeal the ACA.”
Johnson’s office disputed Democrats’ interpretation, with a
spokesman accusing Harris of “lying about Speaker Johnson” by claiming that he
had pledged to repeal the law.
Johnson spokesman Taylor Haulsee wrote in a statement: “The
audio, transcript, and even the NBC News article her campaign cites make clear
that the Speaker made no such comments.”
Haulsee declined to comment on what health-care changes
Johnson would pursue next year or whether the House speaker would rule out an
attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Trump campaign said that he did
not support repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Trump campaign
spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement: “This is not President Trump’s policy position. As President Trump has
said, he will make our healthcare system better by increasing transparency,
promoting choice and competition, and expanding access to new affordable
healthcare and insurance options.”
Trump has worked to downplay his past criticism of the
Affordable Care Act ahead of the election, saying in that September debate that
he would keep the “lousy” law in place, while acknowledging he still
hopes to replace it with something “much better.”
Vance floated a plan to roll back its
approach to helping chronically ill people shop for better plans. FYI: That has been tired with no luck.
My 2 Cents: Nice try GOP & MAGA Mike Johnson – when Trump loses, which he will, then I expect to see MAGA Mike resign from Congress out of shame.
The man is not a leader.
I bet he can’t even spell leadership (re: My earlier post here).
Thanks for stopping by.
