It was always going to end this way.
President Mike Johnson shut down the House for nearly two months to prevent any possible deal on restoring Obamacare subsidies. This same person is firmly committed to raising health insurance costs for the American people, so of course Johnson wasn’t going to keep his promise to allow a House vote on reinstating the subsidies.
The original The Republican plan was to propose its own health care bill and propose a vote on extending the ACA subsidies, so that moderate House Republicans have the opportunity to vote to extend them, which, in theory, would help them campaign for re-election in their home districts.
Allowing a vote was too scary for Mike Johnson because he couldn’t risk his passage, so he pulled the rug out from under his own conferenceand in doing so, delivered a message to the American people.
President Johnson told reporters:
There are about a dozen members in the conference who are in these swing districts and who are fighting hard to make sure they lower costs for all of their constituents. And many of them wanted to vote on this Obamacare-era Covid subsidy created by Democrats.
We looked for a way to allow this pressure relief valve, but it just didn’t happen. We actually worked on it all weekend. And in the end, there was no agreement, it was not concluded.
…
I certainly appreciate the views and opinions of each member of this conference. But I can tell you this: One thing they will all come together on is to vote for this bill that we discussed this morning.
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