Speaker Johnson says GOP working on Republican health care plan amid shutdown

by Emily Brooks | Originally posted on The Hill

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) is working with the chairs of three House committees to compile a Republican health care plan as the government shutdown nears the one-month mark and Democrats demand action on expiring ObamaCare subsidies.

“Republicans have been working on a fix for health care, we’ve been doing this for years,” Johnson said in a press conference on Monday when asked about the coming “health care cliff.”

He held up a copy of a policy framework developed when he was chair of the Republican Study Committee from 2019 to 2020, asserting that “these ideas have been on paper for a long time.”

The heads of those House committees of jurisdiction involved in the health care plans would be Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), and Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.).

Republicans have come under intense pressure from Democrats on the issue of health care, and there have been signs that some in the GOP see it as a vulnerability ahead of next year’s midterms. Enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are set to expire at the end of the year, and millions of Americans are receiving notifications in the mail about sharply rising premiums.