Speaker Johnson Promises ‘Massive Reform’ of Healthcare if Trump Wins

Plus, cleaning up after Biden's 'garbage' ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [The Fisc](   By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey Happy Wednesday! Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump both took their campaigns to North Carolina today, and both have events in Wisconsin tonight. Harris, fresh off her “closing argument” speech in Washington, D.C., last night, also visited Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, this afternoon. And she spoke with reporters this morning, when she tried to distance herself from remarks by President Joe Biden yesterday. Here’s what you need to know. Reuters Speaker Johnson Promises ‘Massive Reform’ of Healthcare if Trump Wins House Speaker Mike Johnson said this week that Republicans are planning for a “massive reform” of the U.S. healthcare system and the Affordable Care Act if Donald Trump wins a second term as president. “Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” Johnson told voters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, while campaigning for a Republican House candidate there. “When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table.” In video obtained by [NBC News]( Johnson said “some really important ideas” are being discussed. One attendee at the event asked, “No Obamacare?” Johnson responded: “No Obamacare,” and rolled his eyes. “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” Healthcare has played a lesser role in this presidential campaign than in previous cycles, but Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have pledged to protect and expand on the Affordable Care Act and its subsidies for coverage. Trump has said he would keep the Affordable Care Act unless Republicans can improve on it, and he famously said during his debate with Harris last month that he has “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Obama law. The White House last month touted a report that showed that nearly 50 million people have had coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace over the past decade. “It’s a really big deal – and yet Republicans in Congress remain committed to taking us backward by repealing the Affordable Care Act,” the White House said in a statement at the time. Sahil Kapur of NBC News reports that Johnson’s office declined to offer details about potential reforms or changes to the Affordable Care Act and did not say whether the speaker supports extending the coverage subsidies that are due to expire at the end of next year. At the Pennsylvania event, Johnson told voters that a caucus of doctors among House members has “a menu of options” for changing the system. He called for taking “government bureaucrats out of the health care equation” and vast deregulation. “We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state,” he said, according to the video. “These agencies have been weaponized against the people. It’s crushing the free market; it’s like a boot on the neck of job creators and entrepreneurs and risk takers. And so health care is one of the sectors, and we need this across the board. And Trump’s going to go big. I mean, he’s only going to have one more term, right? Can’t run for re-election. And so he’s going to be thinking about legacy, and we’re going to fix these things.” Any major reforms along the lines Johnson might suggest are likely to require Republican control of Congress — and even then, they could prove challenging given that some Republicans have accepted that the Affordable Care Act has become an established part of the healthcare system. Why it matters: Johnson’s comments led a Harris campaign spokesperson to warn that “healthcare is on the ballot” in this race. “Speaker Mike Johnson is making it clear — if Donald Trump wins, he and his Project 2025 allies in Congress will make sure there is ‘no Obamacare.’ That means higher health care costs for millions of families and ripping away protections from Americans with preexisting conditions like diabetes, asthma, or cancer,” Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika told NBC News. A Trump campaign spokesperson told NBC that repealing Obamacare is not Trump’s position. A big role for RFK JR? Still, the Johnson video only adds to broader concerns among critics of what a second Trump term might mean for U.S. healthcare. Those concerns were also raised by comments made this week by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who reportedly said Monday that Trump has promised him “control” of key federal public health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In a video obtained by [Politico]( Kennedy said: “The key that President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others.” Kennedy added that the Department of Agriculture would also be in his portfolio. Politico notes that Kennedy, known for his anti-vaccine stance and other controversial opinions, would face significant challenges in winning Senate confirmation as HHS secretary or to another Cabinet post, if Trump were to nominate him. But Kennedy could still play a large role in any Trump administration health policy. Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment Undercuts Harris’s Closing Argument In her last major campaign speech to American voters Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris sought to drive home a message of unity and inclusiveness, contrasting her potential presidency with that of former President Donald Trump. But her forceful closing argument one week before Election Day was also undercut by a remark President Joe Biden made earlier in the day. “America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind: more chaos, more division and policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else,” Harris said Tuesday evening from the same spot where Trump had incited his supporters on January 6, 2021. “I offer a different path, and I ask for your vote. And here is my pledge to you. I pledge to seek common ground and common-sense solutions to make your life better. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.” She added a promise to listen to experts and people who disagree with her: “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.” Yet as Harris was trying to carry that message to battleground states on Wednesday, she and Democrats also found themselves on the defensive, trying to quell a Republican firestorm over Biden’s remark during a Zoom call with the nonprofit group Voto Latino, which encourages Latinos to engage politically and vote. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said, offering a response to the comic at Trump’s rally Sunday who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” The White House said Biden’s comment was not aimed at all Trump backers, and its transcript of the remarks reportedly initially referred to [“supporters’,”]( with an apostrophe indicating the plural possessive, but that was later changed to the singular “supporter’s” — suggesting it was just about the comic’s insulting joke. Whatever Biden meant, his “garbage” comment quickly sparked a backlash among Republicans — never mind Trump’s long history of insulting Democrats and those who don’t support him or his calling America “a garbage can for the world.” Clean up on aisle 7: Biden tried to clean up his mess in a tweet Tuesday night: “Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump's supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That's all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don't reflect who we are as a nation.” Harris tried to mop up, too. She told reporters Wednesday morning that Biden had clarified what he meant, but added: “Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” But Trump used the Biden quote to hit back at the president and Harris. “My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple,” he said in North Carolina on Wednesday. “You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans.” The bottom line: Harris delivered a powerful speech Tuesday night, but Republicans have jumped on Biden’s comment, seeking to tie it back to Hillary Clinton’s [“basket of deplorables”]( remark in 2016. With six days left in the contest, every slip-up becomes magnified and this one gave Trump some room to move past the backlash to his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden. US Economy Records Solid Growth Ahead of Election The U.S. economy recorded another strong quarter from July to September, with gross domestic product expanding at a 2.8% annual rate, the Commerce Department [announced]( Wednesday. Although the results were two-tenths of a percentage point below the previous quarter’s growth rate, the report shows that the economy continues to chug along despite the high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve in its battle against inflation. Growth was driven by consumer spending, which expanded at a 3.7% annualized rate, up from 2.8% in the second quarter. Government spending contributed as well, pushed by defense expenditures, which rose at a 14.9% annualized rate – the biggest jump since 2003, during the Second Gulf War. “The Pentagon has been rushing materiel out to Ukraine and Israel after the extensive delay early in the year, when the foreign aid package was held up in Congress for months,” Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander Capital Markets, said in a note, per [Bloomberg](. Stanley added that the elevated spending for military goods will likely return to more typical levels in the months ahead. Looking for a political boost: The White House hailed the report while linking the solid numbers with the policies enacted by the Biden administration. “Today’s GDP report shows how far we’ve come since I took office—from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression to the strongest economy in the world,” President Joe Biden said in a [statement](. “Since I took office, the economy has grown 12.6%, we’ve had the lowest average unemployment in 50 years, 16 million jobs have been created, and incomes have risen $4,000 more than inflation.” Biden also needled his critics, including the many experts who predicted that the U.S. economy would need to experience significant economic pain in order to beat inflation. “While critics thought we’d need a recession to lower inflation, instead we’ve grown around 3% a year on average, while inflation has fallen to the level right before the pandemic.” With the election less than one week away, Biden called on voters to support his potential successor over her opponent, former President Donald Trump, who Biden said would impose tariffs that amount to a $4,000 a year tax hike. “We need to keep building on this progress,” Biden said. “The Vice President and I are fighting to lower costs on everyday goods—from housing and groceries to health care and child care—while Republicans fight for more tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations.” Rep. Brendan Boyle, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, also drew a connection between specific policies and economic outcomes. Another quarter of solid growth “was supported by the historic investments delivered by Congressional Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration, which have fueled job creation, expanded infrastructure, and revitalized American manufacturing,” Boyle said in a statement. What the experts are saying: “The economy is doing really well,” [said]( Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, per The Wall Street Journal. Slok said the AI tech boom and government spending provided through legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act were contributing to the solid growth. Bobby Kogan of the left-leaning Center for American Progress pointed out that the economy has been growing faster than projected before the pandemic. “This economic growth just can't be stopped,” he [wrote]( on social media. “Economic growth has outpaced pre-COVID projections: the economy is stronger now than we thought it'd be before COVID even happened. And, critically, it's stronger now than we thought it would be when Biden and Harris took office.” Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted how exceptionally strong the U.S. recovery has been from the pandemic, especially by comparison to Europe. The eurozone has emerged weaker from the pandemic, while the United States is now stronger. “It was like that after 2008 and again after COVID,” he [wrote]( on social media. “Reason is deeply structural. Lack of fiscal union in the Euro zone, so there's always insufficient stimulus...” Brooks emphasized that a robust government response to economic crises is essential. “Fiscal stimulus is a good thing if you can afford it,” he said. “The US can, but the Euro zone South cannot.” CNBC’s Ron Insana laid out how good the economy looks, at least to investors. “In addition to an intact ‘soft landing’ scenario, the S&P 500 is up 22.55% year-to-date, outpacing almost every other stock market in the world,” he [wrote]( on social media. “Growth is faster, inflation is lower, productivity is higher and household net worth is at a record. It's not an opinion, it is a fact.” Send your feedback to yrosenberg@thefiscaltimes.com. Fiscal News Roundup - [Biden Sets Off a Firestorm With His Response to Trump Rally Comedian's Puerto Rico Comments]( – NBC News - [Trump Hits Harris — and Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Remark — During North Carolina Rally]( – Politico - [House Speaker Mike Johnson Criticizes Obamacare and Promises 'Massive Reform' if Trump Wins]( – NBC News - [Mike Johnson’s Vow to Overhaul ACA Draws Attention to Unpopular Stance]( – New York Times - [RFK Jr. Claims Trump Pledged to Give Him ‘Control’ of HHS, USDA]( – Politico - [Elon Musk Asks Voters to Brace for Economic 'Hardship,' Deep Spending Cuts in Potential Trump Cabinet Role]( – NBC News - [Polls Show Trump’s Edge Shrinking on Voters’ Top Issue: The Economy]( – New York Times - [Former Republican Congressional Candidate in Indiana Charged With Stealing Election Ballots]( – CBS News - [In Election’s Final Days, Dark Money and ‘Gray Money’ Fund Hidden Agendas]( – New York Times - [Trump Is Considering Halting Federal Grants to Police That Decline to Participate in Mass Deportations]( – NBC News - [Supreme Court Lets Virginia Purge Voter Rolls for Election]( – Bloomberg - [U.S. Economy Grew 2.8% Last Quarter, Powered by Consumer Spending]( – CBS News - [For This Congressman, the National Debt Is the Top Issue. Do Voters Agree?]( – Washington Post - [Trump Loses $1.3 Billion in Net Worth After the Worst-Ever Day for His Social Media Stock]( – CNN Views and Analysis - [Fact-Checking Harris’s Closing Argument]( – Linda Qiu, New York Times - [Helping Kamala Harris, Mike Johnson Vows to Kill Obamacare]( – Ed Kilgore, New York - [Trump’s Plan to Radically Remake Government With RFK Jr. and Elon Musk Is Coming Into View]( – Zachary B. Wolf, CNN - [Did Biden Call Trump Supporters ‘Garbage’? It Comes Down to an Apostrophe]( – Aaron Blake, Washington Post - [Final Trump vs. Harris Polls Show It’s Down to the Wire]( – Ed Kilgore, New York - [Harris Easily Beats Trump on Economic Policy]( – Alan S. Blinder, Wall Steet Journal - [Nobelists for Harris Are Unburdened by Proof]( – Kevin Hassett and Casey B. Mulligan, Wall Street Journal - [The US Economy Is in a Sweet Spot. Why Risk It?]( – Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg - [‘The Rest of the Country Just Might Crumble Around Us’: Wall Street on Trump v. Harris]( – Sam Sutton, Politico - [A Mountain of Government Payments Buries the Myth of American Self-Reliance]( – George F. Will, Washington Post Copyright © 2024 The Fiscal Times, All rights reserved. You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed at our website or through Facebook. The Fiscal Times, 399 Park Avenue, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10022, United States Want to change how you receive these emails? [Update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe](