Mike Johnson Not Giving In To Democrats’ Main Demand For Shutting Down Government

House Speaker Mike Johnson told “Mornings with Maria” host Maria Bartiromo Friday he has not promised to bring up legislation to extend certain COVID-19 pandemic-era payouts for the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The Senate passed an amended continuing resolution Monday that would keep the government open through Jan. 30, 2026, after seven Democrats and one independent voted to end a filibuster led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after Republicans agreed to hold a vote on legislation providing an extension of enhanced subsidies for the ACA. Johnson told Bartiromo he wouldn’t seek to continue “terrible policies,” and did not feel obliged to bring the measure to the floor of the House for a vote.

“I haven’t, and there is a lot of reasons why. First of all, the Unaffordable Care Act has failed the American people, it has done the opposite what they promised they would do, the Democrats broke the American healthcare system,” Johnson told the Fox Business host when she asked if the House would vote on the measure. “The reason your premiums are skyrocketing you have terrible policies and one of them is subsidizing insurance companies. That is what this Covid era subsidy was about. Remember, the Democrat Party created this on their own, they are the ones that put expiration date on it, Dec. 31 of this year, because they knew it was a boondoggle, there is no way they could justify that being permanent policy.”

“What we have said is if there was going to be an extension of that there would be massive reform, you need income caps on that,” Johnson continued. “We should not be subsidizing healthcare for wealthy people, and also, you need all sorts of reforms, you need Hyde protections on things, other innovations.”

Schumer came under fire from left-wing media figures and Democrats in Congress over his decision to help pass a GOP-backed spending bill to prevent a government shutdown in March.

Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire negotiated the deal that led to Democrats, including Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Tim Kaine of Virginia , Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Dick Durbin of Illinois, to vote to end the filibuster of the continuing resolution.

“The Republican Party has known this is going to expire the end of the year, as everyone in Congress has, we were always preparing to work through that deliberative fashion through October, November, December, but ironically, Democrats, because of their shenanigans, took a lot of the time off the clock,” Johnson said.

“We are working on it in earnest. The Republican Party will bring down healthcare costs, not the Democrats,” Johnson continued.