ROOKE: Republicans Missing The Point On Obamacare Subsidies

Republicans have rightly spent the last 15 years decrying the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) as a government leviathan that ballooned healthcare costs for many American families.

Still, Republicans need to hear some cold, hard truths about their resistance to extending the Obamacare subsidies expiring in December. Chief among them is that not extending these subsidies will be a political disaster. Failing to roll out a bold GOP plan to fix the root causes of rising healthcare costs before the 2026 midterms will also be a political disaster.

This isn’t about loving Obamacare or the trillions in entitlements that the ACA created. It’s about protecting the American family, which is still struggling with the rising costs that began during the pandemic and intensified under the Biden-era spending spree. Politico reported that Republicans are missing that simple point and instead are focused on all the wrong issues regarding the ACA subsidies.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune weighed in, saying the COVID-era subsidies were part of a Democrat band-aid and should never have been included in a permanent spending package.

Health insurance for families is about to hit $30,000 a year. Employers are stuck, employees lose raises, and hospitals keep building. Here’s how the ACA rules made it all possible. #healthcare #policy #AffordableCareAct #economy pic.twitter.com/CAhpVyBWaO

— Real Doc Speaks (@realdocspeaks) November 15, 2025

Similarly, Florida Sen. Rick Scott argued that the federal government is responsible for the rise in healthcare costs, and that asking hardworking families to help subsidize others isn’t right. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)

“We are not going to ask somebody making $20 an hour to subsidize someone making $250,000 a year,” Scott said. “The government has caused the cost of everything to go up, and this has got to change.”

Republicans are hoping that, by the time the midterms roll around, the increased cost of healthcare won’t be an issue if the Trump administration is successful in lowering everyday expenses like food, gas, and housing. Others see supporting extending the subsidies as a primary risk, essentially inviting challengers to attack their voting record on an issue the base has long been against.

“The base of the Republican Party still thinks Obamacare is a swear word, so supporting it in that manner is just a bridge too far for most Republican members,” said Stan Barnes, an Arizona-based GOP strategist and former state senator. “Who wants to risk that in any kind of deep red district, or even a swing district? No one wants a primary challenge where the accusation is, ‘You supported Obamacare.’”

But, once again, Republicans are focused on all the wrong things. The primaries are the least of their worries as Democrats will hammer Republican inaction, framing it as an attack on family security. It’s completely naive to think Americans aren’t factoring in healthcare costs when preparing their monthly budgets. And by ignoring the issue, they are handing Democrats a loaded gun while they fiddle with primaries and purist fantasies about who is the most anti-ACA candidate.

This isn’t about supporting or cosigning Obamacare, which should have never been allowed to pass. But we can’t remove the adverse effects of the ACA on American families without putting in a different plan. The GOP doesn’t have an answer for what happens when they turn off the tap. These subsidies will shield about 21 million Americans, many of whom live in red states and face the reality that, without funding interventions, their premiums will double overnight.

Biden’s expiring subsidies aren’t the bulk of rising premium costs—taxpayers will still cover most of the bill.

The truth is, the Affordable Care Act has never made healthcare affordable.

Obamacare is broken, and America needs an off-ramp. pic.twitter.com/R9wRutzTlK

— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) November 20, 2025

The appeal of the Republican Party is that the GOP has positioned itself as a shield for American families from the whims of D.C. elites. Inaction isn’t principled tough love, as some Republicans like Thune would have us believe. It’s callous cruelty that will hit their blue-collar base the hardest over a policy that they were forced into using despite never supporting it.

Republicans shrugging this reality forget that their voters aren’t D.C. policy wonks. They’re parents who were blindsided by Biden-era inflation that the GOP vowed to crush during the 2024 election. The idea that they’ll use the increased healthcare costs as a cudgel to expose Obamacare’s failures is an unrealistic pipedream banking on the hope that they’ll somehow beat Democrats’ ability to control the narrative. (ROOKE: Trump Campaign Promise Could Be The Ticket To Massive Cultural Revolution)

Even though it is accurate to blame rising healthcare costs on Democrats, the GOP is historically terrible at capturing the national conversation in its favor. Democrats will, with the help of the entire legacy media apparatus acting as a propaganda arm for their party, blame the financial pain Americans are feeling on Republican inaction.

Their only option is to temporarily extend these subsidies to buy time to put forward a plan to end Obamacare once and for all. This allows Republicans to be the hero American families have long been searching for while giving them the perfect opportunity to expose Democrats as the painmakers.

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