Democrats thought it would slip by unnoticed. In the frantic race to avoid a government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson says they tried to quietly extend pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies — a move he claims would pad insurance company profits while families choke on rising premiums. He says Republicans had a real plan, real savings, and real reform. Instead, those ideas were stripped out behind closed doors. Now, with subsidies set to expire and both parties digging in, the fight over who actually cares about lowering your healthcare bill is about to explode on Capitol Hill. Johnson is betting that once voters see what was almost signed into law, they’ll start asking who really wrote this bill — their representatives, or the insuran…

Johnson’s argument rests on a sharp contrast: Democrats, he says, chose to preserve temporary subsidies that keep premiums lower on paper while funneling guaranteed payments to big insurers. Republicans, by his telling, wanted structural reforms to drive prices down by double digits, but saw those efforts gutted in last-minute negotiations to keep the government open. For him, that wasn’t a technical policy tweak; it was a moral line.

As the Senate presses ahead with its own funding package, Johnson is positioning the coming months as a referendum on what “affordable” really means. With Affordable Care Act subsidies expiring at year’s end, he warns that simply extending them again is a political Band-Aid on a system that keeps getting more expensive. He’s promising a renewed push for broader, bipartisan reforms — and betting that frustrated families will side with those demanding deeper change over those defending the status quo.