'Unreasonable': Vulnerable Republican blasts saving health care subsidies for millions

Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) stated during an interview on the Simon Conway Show that extending Affordable Care Act tax credits for millions of people — the core issue over which the federal government is currently shut down — is an "unreasonable demand" from Democrats.

The interview, held on Monday, was quickly picked up by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and blasted out, as Miller-Meeks is one of the most vulnerable Republican lawmakers up for re-election next year.

"We did warn about this in 2010, and then in 2012 when the Supreme Court decision came down, the Unaffordable Care Act is proving that it is unaffordable," said Miller-Meeks. "There is so much waste and fraud in the premium tax credits, but the premium tax credits, to your point, which affect about 90 percent of people that get the premium tax credits are not touched. Those, those continue the enhanced premium tax credits which they passed in the COVID relief funding by reconciliation. So it only needed a simple majority passed on Democrat votes in 2021 and then they extended them in 2022 under the IRA funding and they put the expiration date of 2025, the end of 2025."

"So the Democrats sunset them," she continued. "The Democrats had an expiration date, and you may ask, why did they do that? Because we were subsidizing high-income Americans, subsidizing the health insurance. The money goes to the insurance company. It doesn't go to the individuals. So there's no incentive for the insurance companies to even lower or attempt to lower health insurance premiums, and this will continue, and the Affordable Care Act will become even more unaffordable. Obamacare is the Unaffordable Care Act."

"But again, the Democrats put this in place," she added. "These are enhanced premium tax credits that are expiring. They put the expiration date on it and now they want to force us to make it permanent when they could not make it permanent. I think that's an unreasonable demand."

This comes as health care enrollment continues and voters are likely to see a huge spike in costs without any action. Even a number of Republicans suggest they'd be open to negotiating on the issue of extending the subsidies, but are largely still demanding that Democrats provide open-ended votes to reopen the government before such talks can even start.

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