Mike Johnson has dedicated his speakership to killing the Affordable Care Act. In 2025, he passed the legislation that massively cut taxes for the rich and paid for it in part by gutting healthcare in the United States.
Johnson’s legislation threw 4 million Americans off of Medicaid and ended Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies, which raised health insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans.
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Speaker Johnson was so desperate to stop any possibility that the ACA subsidies would be extended that he shut the government down to prevent a deal to extend the subsidies, and he went as far as to close the House down for nearly two months to make sure that no deal could be negotiated that would extend the subsidies and end the shutdown.
Given the depth of Johnson’s hostility toward an Obamacare subsidies extension and the amount of power that Johnson has as speaker, what happened in the House on Thursday was amazing.
The Democratic bill, which they first proposed early in 2025, is a three-year extension of the subsidies. After vulnerable House Republicans broke ranks with Johnson after he went back on his promise to allow a vote on extending the subsidies, and supported a discharge petition to force a vote on the Democratic bill, the legislation passed the House 230-196.
17 House Republicans defied their speaker and voted for the legislation. Those 17 Republicans were Bresnahan, Carey, De La Cruz, Fitzpatrick, Garbarino, Hurd (Co.), Joyce (Ohio), Kean, LaLota, Lawler, Mackenzie, Miller (Ohio), Nunn (Iowa), Salazar, Valadao, Van Orden and Wittman.
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