Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., joined Newsmax on Friday, blasting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as “anything but affordable” and criticizing Democrats for keeping the government closed in order to protect expiring Obamacare subsidies.
“The Affordable Care Act is not affordable,” Marshall said on “Wake Up America.” “That’s the one thing that we can agree upon.”
“The insurance rates are going to go up at least 20% this next year alone.”
He noted that federal subsidies for the ACA, originally expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, have ballooned costs and encouraged waste.
“Before these enhanced COVID temporary subsidies, the government was paying 80% of these people’s premiums, and now we’re paying at least 90%,” Marshall said.
“Thousands of people getting free healthcare, paying zero premiums toward this. It’s exploded from 12 million people on these programs to 24 million people.”
“The biggest challenge with this program is fraud. There’s somewhere between $25 [billion] and $50 billion of fraud in this program.”
Calling the ongoing government closure “Day No. 10 of [Chuck] Schumer’s [D-N.Y.] political shutdown,” Marshall said the Senate minority leader is essentially waiting for the Indivisible Project’s ‘No Kings’ protest to take place in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18 before he considers ending the shutdown.
“This will be a [George] Soros-paid for protest, where his professional protesters show up, the agitators show up,” he said.
“We’ll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully, it will be peaceful — I doubt it.”
“So I think that they have to get that march done. They have to show their protest.”
“This is all a political show; it’s all a political scam right now.”
As a veteran and member of a military family, Marshall said the thought of troops missing paychecks hits him “right in the heart.”
“I’m not sure anybody really wins during a shutdown,” he said. “I don’t see that it’s a good thing at all for anybody.”
“As I pointed out, Oct. 15 … is when the military doesn’t get paid.”
“I have a son that’s serving in the military right now. My dad served, brother served, I served,” added Marshall.
“This is a source of pride for us.”
Despite the partisan standoff, Marshall remained cautiously optimistic that cooler heads will ultimately prevail.
“We passed the NDAA last night — the National Defense Authorization Act — huge bipartisan bill, and that was the first time I saw the temperature come down a little bit down here, that it showed us how to work together again in the Senate,” he said.
“So I’m hopeful a day away from here, a weekend away from here, maybe we’ll come back, and that’s going to mount the pressure.”
“It’s going to take an outside force to make us come together, and I think when we see the military not getting paid … hopefully, we can end this shutdown,” Marshall added.
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