Jeffries: GOP Is Reason We Can't Fix 'Broken' Underlying Healthcare System Aside from ACA Subsidies

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) stated that “the healthcare system is broken and we need to fix it.” But doing so “requires Republicans deciding to abandon their my-way-or-the-highway approach” to that and other issues.

Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked, “Leader, let me ask you this, and I recognize the complications and costs to the American public. There is a question, and maybe you’d say it’s a longer-term question that has to be dealt with later, but the true question, ultimately, underneath all of this is how we’re going to actually lower the costs of healthcare in America. And when I say lower the cost, not just lower the cost for individuals, meaning in the moment subsidize it, but how we actually change the market dynamic at play and whether what you have proposed even tries to address that at all, or, frankly, exacerbates it.”

Jeffries responded, “What we’ve proposed at the moment relates to the fact that the Affordable Care Act tax credits are going to expire on December 31. And no one disputes that, if that happens, tens of millions of Americans are going to experience skyrocketing health insurance premiums, in some cases increasing by $1,000 or $2,000 per month. And 90% of the people who rely on the Affordable Care Act tax credits make around $63,000 per year. These are working-class Americans, everyday Americans, and middle-class Americans. And so, we’ve got to make sure that we don’t allow these tax credits to expire. At the same time, you raise a very good point, Andrew, that the healthcare system is broken and we need to fix it. We want to fix it in a comprehensive way, in a bipartisan way. But that actually requires Republicans deciding to abandon their my-way-or-the-highway approach to everything, which is what has led to the extremism that they’re jamming down the throats of the American people and the fact that everyday Americans, voters, are rejecting that extremism, as we saw in the off-year elections last November.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett