With just eight weeks left before the enhanced subsidies under the ACA vanish, millions of Americans risk facing premium hikes. But Speaker Mike Johnson is still proudly showing off his “notebooks full of ideas.”
The enhanced credits under the Affordable Care Act have helped reduce costs for marketplace enrollees since 2021. But, they are scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2025, unless extended. But when Johnson appeared on Fox News this week, he thrashed the ACA as something “that never worked.” He called it “bad and broken,” claiming it drives costs up and lacks root-cause reform.
And who’s working on that root-cause reform? The Republican Party.
“The Republican party is the party that is working on that, has been working on it, and has more ideas going forward. We got to bring down the cost and you can do that in a responsible way that also increases access and quality of care.”
Johnson went on a long rant about how Democrats messed up the healthcare. But when it came to the Republican plan, Johnson’s robotic talk cracked. “We’ve got notebooks full of ideas,” he said. Despite being reminded that “it’s an urgent matter,” his party is still counting on the remaining two months to develop their ACA alternative.
“There are a lot of ideas on how to drive the cost down and we have November and December to work on that. We’re going to have to get a bipartisan consensus on some of this and so we’ll be presenting our ideas and putting them on the table.”
So, a decade wasn’t enough, but two months will suffice for them? Sure. The clock is ticking fast, and the real consequences are large. One user on X pointed out that the Republicans don’t even have two full months left. “For healthcare to go into effect on Jan. 1st, one must be enrolled by Dec. 15th. Means 5 weeks from today, one must be enrolled, so Congress must figure things out before that.”
And yet, the Republicans have no bill. Just notebooks. Johnson claimed that “subsidizing something is not the answer,” which is fair. But the question remains: what are those causes, what’s the plan, and when will voters actually see text that lowers premiums rather than just deflecting blame?
A recent poll shows nearly four-fifths of Americans support extending the ACA credits, including 59 % of Republicans (via Reuters). That suggests bipartisan appetite for action. But instead, they’re getting notebooks. A user on X joked, “The GOP’s ‘concepts of a plan’ have evolved into ‘notebooks full of ideas.’ In a few years, they’ll have binders of brainstorms. In a decade, archives of abstractions. Endless wishful thinking, zero legislation.”
The reality is, the Dec.31 deadline on ACA isn’t a sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin. It’s a countdown clock. With only a handful of weeks left, what Americans don’t need is more brainstorming. They need text, votes, and protection before the invoice arrives.
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