12/31/2025
Fox Business News host Cheryl Casone asked GOP Rep Mike Lawler about the status of the ACA tax subsidies extension in Congress:
CASONE: Congress ended the 2025 session with no agreement on a possible extension. Now states are stepping in to try and shield those citizens from soaring healthcare costs. One Wall Street Journal op-ed calling ObamaCare ‘a money pit for taxpayers,’ adding a new study shows extending those subsidies would be reckless. Let’s bring in New York Congressman Mike Lawler. Congressman, you have been a strong and loud voice on this fight over these subsidies. Can you give us an update this morning on negotiations?”
LAWLER: “Yeah. So, the objective in signing the three-year discharge was to provide a vehicle to the Senate to actually put forth a bipartisan bill with reforms. We have been negotiating in good faith, since the end of the Democrat-led shutdown, after 43 days we said, ‘Look, we will sit down in good faith, we’ll negotiate an extension with reforms, including income limits.’ As my colleague Mike Flood pointed out, I mean, somebody making $600,000 should not be subsidized by taxpayers. So, we want income limits. We wanted insurance reforms and accountability to hold the insurance companies accountable. Since ObamaCare took effect, their profits have risen over 2000% while healthcare premiums have risen 96%. The reality is, ObamaCare is broken, we all know that, and it needs to be reformed. In addition, we wanted to eliminate zero premium plans and require people to pay a nominal $5 fee so there’s some skin in the game and we can root out the fraud. Over 12 million of the 24 million who benefit from the enhanced premium tax credit have never filed a claim. And so we want to make sure that these people actually a) know they have healthcare, and b) the insurance companies aren’t just bilking the taxpayers. In addition, we have PBM reform and HSA expansion. So we want to see that bill come back from the Senate. The objective was to get that in the House. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reach an agreement with House Republican leadership to get a vote, and so we were left with no choice but to sign that discharge and force a vote.”
Source: Fox Business Network/Grabien