Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's break with her party on the key issue driving the government shutdown is a leading indicator of the political blowback Republicans are risking in the funding fight.
The Georgia Republican called for action on expiring Obamacare subsidies, which she complained would cause insurance premiums to double next year for her constituents, as well as her own adult children, and a former GOP lawmaker told "CNN This Morning" the far-right MAGA firebrand was signaling anxiety within the conservative coalition.
"Ordinarily the party making the policy demand typically gets blamed," said former congressman Charlie Dent. "However, in this era of Trump with, you know, with the president himself saying a lot of good can happen in a shutdown, [budget] director] Russ Vought threatening to run wild and massively lay off federal employees. This could boomerang back on Republicans. But I don't think anybody really wins this thing. I don't think will have an impact on the midterms, either."
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright wasn't so sure, arguing the numbers at stake for Affordable Care Act participants were too big to ignore.
"Part of this truth decay has become a large component of this conversation," Seawright said. "This conversation, this disagreement is not about illegals receiving health care or illegal immigrants, because you have to have a Social Security number in order to qualify for the ACA subsidies. What Republicans are conflating is Ronald Reagan's law that says if you go to a hospital, you have to be seen, by law. Republicans have not rolled back that clause. But let me tell you what this is about: 18.2 million Americans in red states receive those ACA subsidies, 5.8 [million] in blue states, 76 percent of those who receive those subsidies are in places where Trump won."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) are demanding Democrats cave on the health care subsidies and reopen the government first, but Seawright argued that Greene's break showed that Republicans are worried about the issue.
"This is a bipartisan nonpartisan conversation, and if you are a working-class American in this country paying $350 to $450 a month for ACA, that's going to go up to about $1,500 to $1,800 a month," Seawright said. "So this idea that Republicans have been intentional about defunding health care and deprioritizing health care is an argument that I think Democrats should continue to elevate. Why? Because it will come back to haunt Republicans in the midterms."
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