Fallout from federal immigration
enforcement in Minneapolis continues
this week with six federal
prosecutors there resigning over the
assignment to investigate the widow
of the 37-year-old mother shot
and killed by an ICE agent.
And Thursday was the last day of
open enrollment for Marketplace
Affordable Care Act plans,
with early indications showing 1.4
million fewer enrollees than
last year.
But the U.S. House last week voted
to extend those credits, with 17
Republicans joining.
Including Wisconsin 3rd
Congressional Representative Derek
Van Orden.
To check where that measure goes in
the Senate, we turn to Wisconsin's
U.S. Senators, Democrat Tammy
Baldwin and Republican Ron Johnson,
who joins us now.
Senator, thanks very much for being
here.
Thanks for having me.
So what do you know about any
compromise to be had on the
extension of these ACA
enhanced credits?
Well, appreciate you reporting
it accurately. We're talking about
the enhanced credits for
the supposedly 24 million people on
these changes. More than 22 million
will still get the
Obamacare original subsidies, which
were very generous.
The only people losing subsidies are
people making over 400% of the
poverty line.
That's about 1.6 million people, and
I'm actually working with
a couple of Democrat senators to
address those individuals because
they are facing
unbelievably high premiums because
of Obamacare.
It has so destroyed the individual
market. Some of these folks close
to retirement are facing premiums of
$36,000, $38,000 a year.
So I'd like to help them.
But again, I really have,
there's no reason to extend
the enhanced temporary pandemic
subsidies for people who still will
retain the Obamcare subsidies.
What kind of traction is that
getting your proposal
to maintain credits
for those at 400%
above poverty?
But what I've been told is there are
enough Democrats who will co-sponsor
that, but right now I think they're
still holding out hope that they can
extend all the subsidies.
I just believe that's dead on
arrival here in the Senate.
We voted that down multiple times
during the shutdown.
That's just not going to happen.
Were you surprised by
the 17 Republicans in the House
who voted to extend those enhanced
credits?
I think the issue's been so
misreported,
it's been
so misrepresented that I
think there are people in very close
districts were concerned
about that misrepresentation.
They wanted to be showing their
constituents that no, they want to
help them handle
the extremely high premiums.
But remember, the reason premiums
are so high is because Obamacare is
just flawed.
It's an awful structure.
It forced a very small percentage of
the American population, those 24
million people on the individual's
change, to completely bear the cost
of covering people with pre-existing
conditions.
So that's the reason why premiums
since the implementation
of Obamacare have increased four
times the rate of inflation.
So again, it's completely failed.
And the only thing the subsidies are
doing right now is they're masking
that and certainly helping people.
What we've got to do is we've gotta
fix Obamcare,
repair the damage done, and
transition to a system that would
actually work.
Well, the root cause of
our health care financing system is
the third party payer system.
Somebody else is going to pay the
cost
of the procedures
and the medical services.
All we pay for is insurance,
it's way too high, or we pay our
taxes.
So until you actually reintroduce
consumerism, where consumers know
what things cost and they're
concerned about what things have
cost. Right now doctors don't know,
nurses don't know.
Patients don't know.
The only people know are the bean
counters, so that's a completely
flawed system.
You've removed all the benefits of a
free market competitive system out
of healthcare, so you don't have
lower costs, you don't t have better
quality, you don't have better
service. So again, return
consumerism, free market competition
in there.
Now, providers aren't gonna like it.
Right now, every incentive in our
current healthcare system is to
increase prices because everybody's
taking a percentage cut off it.
They'd rather take a percent cut off
of something that costs $10,000
rather than five.
So. It's about consumerism,
that's the only solution.
On immigration enforcement,
Minneapolis obviously continues
to be a powder keg.
How does the president invoking
the Insurrection Act bringing
in U.S.
Military help or hurt what's going
on there in your mind?
Well, what you ought to do is take a
look at different states, those that
are actually cooperating with ICE
as we try and, as the Trump
administration tries to clean up
this enormous mess led behind
by Biden and Democrats
who opened up our borders, versus
those states that are resisting,
where local law enforcement actually
holds illegal immigrants that
have committed crimes so that ICE
can pick them up peacefully at the
jails. You're not seeing a problem.
Where you're seeing a problem is
where you have insurgents like
Governor Walz.
And the mayor, inciting people
to resist and obstruct justice,
and that led to the tragedy of that
one woman's death.
Do you have concerns that Wisconsin
will be similarly embroiled?
I would hope that Wisconsin
county sheriffs and
local officials would cooperate with
ICE. I think generally they do.
We do not have pockets
of large immigrants
in the state of Wisconsin.
So it's not as big an issue here as
it is with the Somali population
and others in Minnesota and some of
these other big cities.
Do you feel like public benefits
fraud in Minnesota justifies
the Trump administration to surge
ICE there?
That's not why they're doing it.
They're two totally separate issues.
And yet that has been something that
the president has spoken to.
Well, again, you have a large
Somali population that now we're
seeing evidence of how much they are
defrauding the federal government on
a host of government programs.
Flying $700 million of
cash out of the Minneapolis airport.
Again, there's some real problems
there, but that's separate from the
illegal immigrants and quite
honestly, the sanctuary city
sanctuary states like Minneapolis
and Minnesota, where
you don't have local officials
working with ICE to
peacefully turn over people they've
detained that have committed crimes.
Other states that do it, you don't
have these problems.
You stated this week that you do not
want to see immigration enforcement
action on farmers.
Do you have any assurances on that?
Just that, you know, for example,
President Trump was not happy with
the raid, I think, the Hyundai
plant.
So people hear that they're working,
contributing.
That is not the people that
ICE is primarily going
after right now. They're going after
the criminals.
Now, if you're associating yourself
with people who've committed crimes,
if you get caught up in those
enforcement actions, I mean, if come
to this country, legally you've
committed a crime as well, but
that's not who the Trump
administration is targeting.
Do you support, on
the kind of world stage,
do you support the administration's
actions in Venezuela
or
threats against Iran
or even looking
at Greenland?
Do you that kind
of foreign policy?
Is undeniably good that Maduro is
no longer the illegitimate
leader in destroying
Venezuela. Now, what comes next?
I don't know.
If the demolos could be replaced
by the Iranian people, that would be
a good thing for the world.
They are a menace.
Greenland, from my standpoint, I'm
not worried about a military
invasion there. I think it's
appropriate for President Trump to
understand and point out what a
strategic, how strategically
important Greenland is.
I think there's probably more and
more intelligence coming out exactly
what Russia and China may be
doing there. And we need to make
sure that Greenland is protected for
NATO and for America and for our own
national security.
What do you think average
Wisconsinites care most about
right now? Do you think it's the
cost of living?
Always has been always will be and
it's it's difficult to you know what
once you've uh devalued the
dollar to the extent we have over
over the decades a dollar held in
1998 it's only worth 51 cents
as as recently as 2019
that dollar's worth 80 cents and
so the 40-year high inflation
incurred during the biden
administration that permanently
devaluing the dollar so you know
those a lot of those prices they're
not going to go back down now
there's certain commodities like
energy gasoline you're noticing
because we actually are encouraging.
Drilling and energy production,
gasoline prices are going down.
I think a more rational
approach to bird flu is probably
bringing down the price of eggs.
So there are certain things we can
address.
President Trump right now, and I've
had a briefing in terms of what he's
doing to make sure that European
countries or other developed
countries pay the same price we pay
for drugs so they don't freeload
off of our innovation.
That will also help things in
terms pharmaceutical pricing.
All right, Senator Ron Johnson, we
leave it there. Thanks very much for
your time.
Have a good day.
Thank you. We certainly ran through
a lot of issues.
We did.
Take care. Thanks.
Bye.