OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:34 PM – Monday, October 27, 2025
GOP Speaker of the House Mike Johnson revealed that Republican leaders are developing a new healthcare plan amid the government shutdown, while Democrats continue pushing the Trump administration to permanently extend Obamacare subsidies.
On Monday, Johnson revealed that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) is leading a healthcare reform package in collaboration with 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 been working on a fix for health care, we’ve been doing this for years,” Johnson stated on Monday after being asked about the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits.
“The expiring ObamaCare subsidy at the end of the year is a serious problem,” he continued. “If you look at it objectively, you know that it is subsidizing bad policy. We’re throwing good money at a bad, broken system, and so it needs real reforms.”
“But Republicans have a long list of ideas,” Johnson noted, holding up a copy of a policy framework developed in 2019. “Leader Scalise has been working with the chairmen of our three committees of jurisdiction — putting all of that, formulating all that, grabbing the best ideas that we’ve had for years, to put it on paper and make it work.”
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The White House has consistently maintained that the Democrats “shut down the government over free healthcare for illegal aliens,” pointing toward their “unserious proposal” which “takes extraordinary efforts to accommodate illegal aliens while repealing reforms that strengthen healthcare for American citizens.”
On the flip side, Democrats have since blamed the Trump administration for refusing to capitulate to their specific healthcare demands to reopen the government.
“This is all Trump,” Democrat Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) argued. “Trump’s not engaged. Republicans won’t negotiate.” Welch went on to argue that Trump’s visit to Asia is an “indication of how he could care less.”
“The message is, frankly, President Trump: ‘Stay in America. Put America first. Sit down with us and work this out.’”
In response to Democrat demands, Johnson reiterated that Republicans are willing to sit down and negotiate, but only after the government is reopened “because it’s very complicated to fix.”
Though the details behind Scalise’s proposal are currently unclear, Johnson noted that no matter what the policy is, “we know we’re going to have to arm wrestle with Democrats. Why? Because many of them are avowed to get us to a single-payer system.”
“They do love socialism, my friends.”
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