Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told his party to not go “wobbly” on ObamaCare amid a push from Democrats on health care in the ongoing government shutdown.
“I’ve been in Congress since 2019 and have waited six years for my party to have an opportunity to go on the offense on healthcare—and win,” Roy wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published Sunday titled “This Is No Time to Go Wobbly on ObamaCare.”
“Should Congress extend enhanced subsidies for ObamaCare that were established temporarily during Covid? It doesn’t take a seasoned pol or savvy operative to know the answer is no,” Roy added later. “The jig is up, the pandemic is over and my colleagues shouldn’t blink in any other direction. Republicans must prove that we are for healthcare freedom and against socialized medicine.”
The federal government shut down last week in the wake of congressional leaders failing to come to a deal on a stopgap spending bill, leaving lawmakers struggling on how to move forward.
Democratic senators refused to vote for the House-passed funding bill because it did not extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that are set to expire in December. They also want Medicaid funding restored after it was cut from the budget bill President Trump signed in July.
A recent survey found a majority of Republicans and Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters back the continuation of enhanced ACA tax credits, which are central to the government shutdown fight.
Marc Short, who was former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, predicted Sunday in an interview that the GOP will fold in the face of pressure from Democrats to extend ACA subsidies to stop the shutdown.
“I think, sadly, Republicans are going to cave on this in the end. The bottom line is that Democrats were really shrewd when they put the ObamaCare subsidies in the plan,” Short said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
“It bought off insurance to support ObamaCare. No surprise the government takes our health care, prices go up. And so here we are, 100 percent increase in prices, and basically you have Democrats and Republicans, and Republicans are opposed to any free market reforms, eventually they’re going to do this.”
