Friday on CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said many Republicans in Congress were “perfectly fine with working people paying a lot more for their health care.”
Frost said, “Our leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has a discharge petition that every Democrat has signed. We only need a handful of Republicans to sign it, and it will force a vote so we can extend these tax subsidies. I haven’t read the entire bill that you’re talking about, but yesterday they released some general points on what it will be. It didn’t look like a health care plan to me. It looked like a hodgepodge of different ideas relating to health care. The fact of the matter is, in 19 days, 25 million Americans will have their health care go up anywhere from 50 to 300%.”
He added, “I’m in Florida, this is the biggest Affordable Care Act state in the nation. I have 189,000 people in my district alone who are going to have their health care go up by insane amounts. What’s going to happen is some people are going to pay those insane amounts and have no money to feed their family or pay their rent, and a lot of people are just going to not have health care. And they’re not going to go to the doctor and they’re going to wait till they’re dying and go to the hospital, like many do in this country. I think it’s despicable that in the richest country on earth, not everyone has health care, and we can’t even pass a bill to make sure we have. We extend these subsidies for the 25 million Americans who need them right now. I recognize that we have a broken health care system, and we need to do something about it. But right in front of us, in 19 days, this these tax subsidies will expire in 25 million working people in this country are going to pay a hell of a lot more for health care. So we need Republicans to join us. The problem that Mike Johnson has is he himself and many Republicans in Congress do not want to extend them. They don’t believe they should be extended. They are perfectly fine with working people paying a lot more for their health care, so they can give tax breaks to billionaires.”
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