Sen. Ron Johnson
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), an extremely vulnerable incumbent in 2016, is very concerned that people are going to lose their health insurance before he can be re-elected. So he's introducing legislation to postpone people losing their insurance until
after the election. He's very concerned about the prospects for Republicans should the Supreme Court decide in June, as a result of the
King v. Burwell case, that Congress did not intend for people purchasing health insurance on the federal exchange
are not to be eligible for subsidies. (Wisconsin uses the federal exchange.) So his plan would allow people to keep their subsidies until August 2017, when a Republican president and Congress will
repeal the law and "replace" it.
Just in case you might think Johnson is worried about all the people in his state who might be losing their health insurance, don't. This is solely about politics and Johnson makes that absolutely clear.
"We must set up the 2016 presidential election as a contest between health-care decisions made by Washington politicians and bureaucrats and reforms that put patients back in charge," Johnson wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week previewing his proposal.
The bill would also repeal ObamaCare’s mandates for individuals and employers to provide insurance, which Johnson argues are a burden.
Remember, Johnson thinks that
people getting the subsides are basically moochers. He says they "have benefited from Obamacare on the backs of the American taxpayer." Never mind that the same people getting subsidies
are taxpayers. But the key part to Johnson is that they are also voters. He doesn't give a crap if they have health insurance, he just doesn't want to be blamed for them losing it.