One of the last policy splits between President Donald Trump and outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) before her abrupt resignation from Congress came over the expiring Obamacare tax credits.
Greene wanted to extend them, as did many Democratic lawmakers, as a condition for ending the government shutdown. Now, the Trump administration is eyeing a path toward something similar, having won the shutdown battle but not the affordability war.
Congressional Republicans, many of whom would still like to see Obamacare revamped substantially or even repealed entirely, are not wild about Trump’s rumored plans. The Freedom Caucus and many top GOP leaders are reluctant to bail out the Democrats’ healthcare law. Not even the centrists have quite coalesced around a Trump proposal.
Yet, Greene isn’t exactly Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on healthcare.
Trump and Republican congressional majorities unsuccessfully sought to repeal Obamacare in 2017, during the president’s first term, after failing to unite behind a replacement plan. The individual mandate, one of Obamacare’s least popular provisions, was effectively rolled back as part of the original Trump tax cuts.
Since then, public opinion has swung in Obamacare’s favor. While the healthcare law has only increased access at immense cost, making a mockery of its official name, the Affordable Care Act, it now represents the medical insurance status quo for millions.
But the GOP’s current healthcare impasse illustrates that, as much as the Trump-Greene relationship deteriorated in recent months, they still have a great deal in common. The two Republicans are heavily right-coded, but their populist bent makes them, in some respects, more centrist than the average GOP lawmaker. Healthcare was the latest issue on which Greene attempted to out-populist Trump, following disagreements with him on foreign policy and the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump objected to throwing the Democrats a lifeline on the government shutdown or doing anything that might delay reopening the federal government. Other Republicans regarded Greene’s sudden interest in Obamacare subsidies as opportunistic. But Trump positioned himself to the left of such 2016 GOP primary opponents as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on healthcare nearly a decade ago, even as he vowed to repeal Obamacare while replacing it with something better.
In his one debate with former Vice President Kamala Harris during last year’s general election, Trump conceded Republicans only had “outlines” of a plan to replace Obamacare 14 years after its initial passage and more than a decade into his national political career.
Now that the shutdown is over, Trump is looking to lead reluctant congressional Republicans — who must defend their narrow majorities in next year’s midterm elections — toward at least a temporary Obamacare solution. But not one so temporary it expires and sets up another healthcare confrontation before voters head to the polls again.
“Right now, the president is very much involved in these talks, and he’s very focused on unveiling a healthcare proposal that will fix the system and will bring down costs for consumers,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a recent briefing. “As for the details of those discussions, I’ll let the president speak for himself.”
The high cost of living emerged as a top issue in November’s off-year elections, which featured big Democratic victories. The economy has become a liability for Trump outside of the pandemic for the first time in his two nonconsecutive terms.
Capitol Hill Republicans have been resistant to Trump’s populist redefinition of the party. The drop in Trump’s poll numbers and his acrimonious split with Greene, one of the biggest MAGA voices in Congress, could reinforce this skepticism.
REPUBLICAN MAIN STREET CAUCUS THROWN FOR A LOOP OVER ‘SUPPORT’ FOR TRUMP’S OBAMACARE PLAN
Or perhaps the GOP’s own electoral needs could lead lawmakers to cobble together some kind of solution to their healthcare woes.
It isn’t hard to imagine a different context in which Greene was one of Trump’s top allies in Congress on this issue. War, Epstein, and the shutdown intervened. Now, that ship has sailed.
