Johnson Votes to Lower Health Insurance Premiums by 11%
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) voted to pass the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, which makes targeted reforms to health care costs.
“Obamacare made health care unaffordable for the American family. Many families are paying more for their health insurance than they pay for their mortgage or rent,” said Johnson. “The program has become riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse, which only drives prices higher for those trying to do right. The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act will fix a broken system and provide more options for people who are struggling to make ends meet.”
The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act:
- Lowers premium costs through cost-sharing reduction payments.
- Appropriates cost-sharing reduction payments to stabilize the broken system and individual market.
- Lowers premium costs by 11 percent and reduces out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and copays.
- Brings pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) transparency and removes hidden costs of prescription drugs.
- Requires PBMs to provide employers with clear, detailed reporting on prescription drug spending, including rebates, pricing, and formulary decisions.
- Provides employers and employees with the transparency they deserve to help lower premium costs and improve access to prescription medications.
- Allows small business owners and independent workers to form association health plans.
- Expands access to Association Health Plans (AHPs) by allowing small employers and self-employed workers to band together across industries to access more options for more affordable, higher quality plans.
- Strengthens bargaining power for small business owners and independent workers by giving them access to group rates, more provider networks, and alternatives to costly small-group or individual marketplace plans.
- Provides more choices for employees to customize their health care plans.
- Protects small businesses from costly regulatory overreach.
Background:
- In 2025, the average family paid $27,000 in health insurance premiums. These premiums are increasing 26% in 2026.
- Big insurance is making record profits. Their profits are 600% higher than when Obamacare became law.
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Obamacare:
- A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) showed significant risk of fraud exists with the premium tax credit.
- In the course of GAO’s investigation, 100% of fake applicants were approved in late 2024.
- 18 out of 20 fake applicants are still receiving subsidized coverage for 2025.
- CMS approved coverage with no documents or with fake ones, including fake citizenship papers.
- One Social Security Number was used on applications totaling over 125 insurance policies—the equivalent of 71 years of subsidized coverage.
- In 2024, 66,000 Social Security Numbers had more than one year’s worth of subsidized coverage in a single year.
- In 2024, health insurers received $94 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies for deceased individuals.
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Dusty writes: “Obamacare made health care unaffordable for the American family.”
Huh? I don’t think so. But… it will be unaffordable come January 1st.
ACA (Obamacare) premiums will skyrocket, and millions… that’s right… MILLIONS will be booted from Medicaid as a result of Republican actions this year. That’s the truth.
If the ACA made Healthcare so affordable, why are the government subsidies necessary?
If it wasn’t affordable this year, it sure as hell won’t be next year when you are done doubling the premiums on millions of Americans.
If agriculture is the leading business in South Dakota, why are the government subsidies necessary?
Still doesn’t answer the question.
Sure it did, politcians
The statement was directed to elk.
awwwwwww poor baby
Yes, Obamacare destroyed health insurance. Premiums skyrocketed and wealth transferred from individuals and hospitals to insurance companies ant incompressible rates. Obamacare did double duty, in addition to destroying health care as we know it, the forever-subsidies masked the decline until right now! It’s not sensitive for Republicans to say this, but it’s true. This is the biggest “I told you so” moment we’ve seen in modern politics. Republicans said Obamacare would drive up costs and destroy the market. We said you’d have fewer coverage options and and the options that remained would cover less. Everything republicans predicted is coming true. This article is about Dusty. Did I read this right? Is he voting for more subsidies just redistributed? We don’t need to move the money around again, we need to destroy the disease that’s destroying healthcare. Would someone please stand up and vote to repeal Obamacare?!
Bullshit
Elaborate, why is the statement bs?
Americans support Obamacare by about 62 to 36 percent. Why?
Because government picked up the tab. This stat has nothing to do with actual cost.
100%
The original subsidies will remain. You are talking about the additional subsidies passed during covid. Obamacare will revert to its original plan come January, which was promised to be oh so workable and affordable, people could keep their insurance and their doctor. This is the dems mess. More subsidies will do nothing to fix it.
A family health insurance policy at work cost roughly $12,000 per year in 2010, the year the ACA was approved. Dusty said policies like that are now 600% more expensive today making that family plan priced at $84,000. Health insurance was expensive in 2010 and it is expensive today but it is not 600% more expensive now. The bill you voted for today has no chance of ever becoming law and nothing will change until everyone, conservatives, moderates, and progressives work together on solutions.
Any idea what its prospects are in the Senate?
UPSHOT: the GOP will reduce the ACA prices a little, then make sure we have the kind of crap health coverage plans that made ACA necessary. We’ll pay way more for the crap policies in this bill than we paid 20 years ago.
ACA wasn’t about giving everyone cheap crap policies, it was about finding ways to make sure the most people were covered for the care they needed, and the most AFFORDABLE WAY to share the cost for that care fairly across the US population and govt. ACA works fine in a system where the players commit to do their parts for the long haul.
If anything, what didn’t work was how Congress made sure they could welch on their share by making sure it was going to laps every few years, instead of making it a rock solid part of government spending.
You can mumble industry buzzwords and spread all the welfare-queen GOP fairy dust you want to cover this new increment of societal destruction by your own hand. But your own president is the biggest welcher and cheat in US history so it’s not surprising that events take this course.
What kind of insurance product has a baseline premium (the amount you pay when you don’t have a catastrophic event) that itself represents a catastrophic cost necessitating government assistance?
Johnson votes for 11% on premiums, but Trump is working harder, he said 600% drop in drug prices last night, they will pay us to go to the doctor now. Thanks Trump!
Dusty justifies this because of “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Obamacare”.
Oh oh… I believe there is waste, fraud, and abuse in Social Security and Medicare too.
Politicians have been decrying “waste, fraud, and abuse” for as long as I can remember. But it’s still there, apparently.
Man, if only every other industrialized nation on Earth had figured out a way to provide healthcare…
They haven’t. Did you know it takes an average of 18 weeks – 4 1/2 months – to get an appointment in Britain for routine care? I’m not saying 18 weeks for treatment. I’m saying 18 weeks for an intake with reception. Do you know Britain is going bankrupt on the back of their national medical system? Consider a recent Canadian example. Ever heard of Jolene Van Alstine from Saskatchewan? She needed surgery, except there wasn’t a qualified physician in her province. So, she needed a referral from another physician in her province to a qualified surgeon in a difference province. But, the Canadian health care system is so crappy, there isn’t even a physician available to refer Ms. Van Alstine to the other Canadian doctor. Canada’s solution, just die! She was referred to their MAID program. Instead, she’s doing what people around the world do when their free healthcare fails, she’s coming to America! Please, oh please, if we ever debate free healthcare, make this point again! Your point that the rest of the world is so much better than we are on this. I’ll point to the long line of internationals fighting to come here b/c their system sucks.
Watch some of the Youtube videos about Obstetrical care in the UK for the past 10-15 years
most are anecdotal: there’s enthusiasm for “free birthing” in which women give birth at home by themselves, having figured out the midwives aren’t showing up. So they and their partners study up on DIY childbirth. Calling for ambulances hasn’t been working out either
Stillbirths are occurring because hospitals in the NHS were told to reduce the number of c-sections, with the result the surgery is only done to protect the life of the mother,,not the baby, apparently. Something said about how maybe they’ll perform the surgery if the mother requests it. (Sort of like a PRN pain medication, you won’t get it unless you request it? Do the patients know they have to request it??)
Commentators talking about this stuff are so overly careful about what they say it is hard to figure out what is going on. But it doesn’t sound good..
You do know there’s more than one industrialized country than Canada? The German and Nordic models of healthcare blow ours (and Canadas) out of the water.
Such a liar.