Gallego: We Set Up ACA Subsidies to Expire with ‘Hope’ GOP Would Support Them

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Arena,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) said that when Democrats set up Obamacare subsidies to expire, they were “trying to maybe hope for the best that this country and our Republican colleagues would understand that raising insurance rates on people is a bad thing. I’m sorry they don’t see it that way, but it’s also not my job to make their job easier.”

Host Kasie Hunt asked, “[D]idn’t Democrats kind of set that up in the bill that you passed, though, that these subsidies were going to expire?”

Gallego answered, “When we passed the bills back in the day as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, of course, we were trying to maybe hope for the best that this country and our Republican colleagues would understand that raising insurance rates on people is a bad thing. I’m sorry they don’t see it that way, but it’s also not my job to make their job easier. My job is to make sure that the premiums of 24 million Americans [do] not double overnight. And if it’s — if it makes it harder on the Republicans that we’re putting them in a very difficult position that they have to answer for that, and, hopefully, it actually comes with a good outcome, which is Americans not having to pay higher premiums, then that’s good. But I’m not going to abide by old norms, especially when you’re dealing with this presidency, this administration, and how the Republicans themselves have been acting.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett