GOP grows uneasy over voters' health care premiums amid shutdown standoff

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN Politics

PUBLISHED Oct 26, 2025, 8:00 AM ET


Anxiety is rising among congressional Republicans that their party has no plan to address a critical health care deadline this fall that will result in spiking costs for millions of Americans – the issue at the heart of the deepening government shutdown crisis.

And some of those GOP members are offering a stark warning to their own leaders: Doing nothing could cost them their full control of Congress in next November’s midterms, calling for a plan that would address expiring enhanced Obamacare tax credits to be swiftly advanced once the government eventually reopens.

“I think the reality is, if costs go up under our control, it could have an impact on us,” Rep. David Valadao, a vulnerable GOP lawmaker from California, told CNN about the political effects of the health care fight. “I get that there’s some in leadership who don’t like hearing it but there’s no denying it.” “Just watching rates go up and pointing fingers is not what we should be doing in our position,” he said.

Valadao is among dozens of rank-and-file House and Senate members who have begun drafting their own ideas about how to deal with the expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which help millions of Americans afford insurance. Many of those GOP members — predominantly from battleground seats — are also directly urging their leadership and the White House to do something to make sure the tax credits keep flowing at year’s end.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/26/politics/health-care-premiums-obamacare-republicans-shutdown

[Deuxcents]

1. The whole healthcare system needs to be changed/replaced but they have no ideas even after almost 4 weeks

You’d think they would have thought of this years ago

[Turbineguy]

2. Maybe it's time to trot out the secret plan that trump cooked up in 2016.

[dweller]

9. Involve the Russians ?

🤔




✌🏻

[patphil]

3. The GOP is growing uneasy? Are you kidding?

We're talking about a life and death issue for millions of Americans, and they're uneasy?
This is the most important issue in the lives of these people. The GOP needs to realize how much their lack of compassion for their fellow citizens is causing fear, worry, anxiety, and emotional suffering for these people.
The ACA subsidies are only part of the whole thing. Medicare, Medicaid, and eventually Social Security are at stake here.
This is about one party that lacks love; that thinks Empathy is toxic; that doesn't care even the least bit about anyone who doesn't have the ability to enrich the GOP.
I can't imagine how callous the GOP party has become. It's beyond my ability to fathom their distain for those Americans who need help and aren't able to cope with the problems in their lives.
They have abandoned tens of millions of Americans in favor of a few thousand very rich people who give them money in return for making them richer.

It's evil in it's primal, most despicable form.

[BOSSHOG]

4. "DRAFTING THEIR OWN IDEAS."

ABOUT HOW TO DEAL WITH BLAH, BLAH IMPORTANT MEDICAL STUFF.

In October. After dicking the dog for months. Waiting on the White House. To do what? You’re republicans. You suck at leadership and governance. You are spineless quislings. Americans will soon be suffering at the food bank and will soon not be able to afford healthcare.

BECAUSE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND ITS LEADERSHIP. I would suggest that you hang your heads in shame but you wouldn’t understand.

[aeromanKC]

5. If only there were a simple solution right under their noses.

If only.

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. Here's what 9 of those idiots could do

It takes 9 GOP reps to petition to vacate the Speaker. That's it. Potentially losing the Speakership might be the enough leverage to get Johnson moving - or at least give us a circus while we wish we had bread.

[Skittles]

7. they don't give a FUCK if Americans have healthcare

they sure do care about VOTES though

[dlk]

8. This is what they voted for

They got exactly what they wanted.

[amcgrath]

11. I don't know why people are so scared of this?

These cost increases are just the result of the removal of subsidies through ACA etc. i don’t think that’s really the problem. It’s devastating to many, but the real pain is yet to come. And that will come from the cessation of thousands of public health services that were once provided.
These services were probably the biggest subsidy that any private companies have ever received. A person - or family has their premium calculated against a set of tables. These tables evaluate various risks, with probably the majority focussing on the odds of exposure. It might calculate your chances of being hit by a bus, but it is far more focussed on what are the odds of you getting on a bus with someone who has TB. Or buying your lunch at a deli where an employee has hepatitis. Or the odds that your kids go to a school where some of the kids catch measles, or mumps or whatever.
You have a government that is closing down vaccination clinics and discouraging their use. They have removed the rights of school and workplaces to demand their students/ staff have vaccines - when the inevitable hits, they will no doubt be unable to demand masking too.
When there are outbreaks, the offices which once monitored for them will be gone, and so will be the measures they may have put in place to contain the spread. The government have taken away both the preventive measures and the measures once there as a back up plan. And with no measures to control or report, a city or state might be headed into a disaster that nobody is reporting on.
Insurance companies base their premiums on factors like this. With every safeguard removed, they will not only have to pay out for more sick insured customers, they won’t know that an epidemic is even under way or how bad it may get. When the extent of a crisis is unknown, an insurer is going to err on the side of caution and base their premiums on worst case scenarios.
This is just the initial stage of the problem. Since hospitals can find themselves sometimes having to treat the uninsured, they will try and recover those costs elsewhere. They will increase prices and add charges. The reason emergency rooms tend to charge an immediate bed or emergency suite fee of $1500 or so has nothing to do with the cost of treating you. It’s to recover the lost revenue from treating the uninsured. As hospitals up their charges and the average cost of a visit increases, not only will hospitals start closing down, but insurance companies will have to factor in another reason to increase their premiums.
I suspect there will be many, many millions who were just about managing to pay their premiums without help from ACA. The required increases in premiums will leave them unable to pay

[calimary]

12. "...it COULD have an impact on us"???

“If costs go up under our control…”???

They’re actually starting to worry about that??? Holy Sheepshit!!!

I hope they worry themselves right straight directly into MINORITY status. As SOON as possible! And without passing “Go” OR collecting 200 dollars. Can’t happen soon enough! They’re utterly DETESTABLE, the whole miserable red-team lot of ‘em.

A little unemployment might do at least a few of ‘em some good.

[BaronChocula]

13. republican damage is done

If they shifted course now on health tax credits, there's still loss of benefits across the board from the Big Ugly and unrelenting inflation. When these morons admit there's trouble ahead for the trump express , it's already coming off the tracks.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. Hey Repukes

Stop kissing Trump's rump and do your fucking job.

[Emile]

15. They should feel uneasy. Their leader is flying

all over the world, and back home the government is shutdown.