House Speaker Vows ‘Massive Reform’ to Obamacare If Trump Wins

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) walks to a meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 11, 2024. Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) proposed a major change to the U.S. health care system and the Affordable Care Act if former President Donald Trump wins next week’s election.

“Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson told a crowd in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Monday as he campaigned with Republican House candidate Ryan Mackenzie.

“No Obamacare?” an attendee asked him, according to online video footage of Johnson’s comments to the crowd reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Johnson replied, “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that,” referring to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the significant health care law that was backed by President Barack Obama.

During the event, Johnson did not provide specific details on how he would change the law.

“We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state. These agencies have been weaponized against the people. It’s crushing the free market. It’s like a boot on the neck of job creators and entrepreneurs and risk takers. And so health care is one of the sectors, and we need this across the board,” Johnson said.

“If you take government bureaucrats out of the health care equation and you have doctor–patient relationships, it’s better for everybody. More efficient, more effective,” he added. “That’s the free market. Trump’s going to be for the free market.”

In response to his comments, the Democratic Party said in a recent news release that both Johnson and Trump want to repeal the ACA.

“Mike Johnson is just saying out loud what the Trump–Vance ticket has been planning all along: ‘Massive’ new attacks on the Affordable Care Act and ‘no’ protections for millions of Americans with preexisting conditions,” said the Democratic National Committee’s Alex Floyd in a statement.

Johnson on Wednesday disputed the Democratic Party’s accusations in a statement, saying he made “no such claim” to repeal Obamacare, noting that he said the policy is “deeply ingrained” in the U.S. health care system.

Last year, Trump weighed in on the issue and criticized health insurance prices as too high under the measure.

“The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives,” he wrote on Truth Social in November 2023. “We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”

The Health and Human Services Department has said that more than 40 million are insured through coverage related to provisions of the ACA.

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, which has long been critical of Obamacare, estimated in a policy paper that the act “has doubled the cost of individual health insurance” between 2013 and 2019.

“Eleven years after the passage of Obamacare, Americans buying health insurance under the law are still worse off financially than before the health law was enacted,” it said.

In a recent statement, however, the White House has said that the ACA has saved American households money. On average, families saved an estimated $800 per year, according to the Biden administration.

Another statement from the administration indicated that Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris would work to expand the ACA if she is elected.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.