Hassett Admits 'A Lot Of People Like' Obamacare

Even red state governors understand their constituents will lose health care if the ACA subsidy levels fall.
Hassett Admits 'A Lot Of People Like' Obamacare
Credit: Sceengrab
By John Amato — October 6, 2025

CNBC host Joe Kernen raked Republicans, Trump and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett over the coals for never having an actual health care plan for America as the Trump administration is gathering steam to let the ACA subsides go away.

Kernen went back to before 2008 to bring Hassett up to speed.

KERNEN: I just want to go over, and maybe you can come up with what the Republican plan is.
So back before Obamacare, Republicans didn't want to talk about healthcare.

That left a huge opening for Obama, 2010, came up with this, what is really a mandate subsidy mess, I'm quoting Kimberly Strassel, which almost got repealed by a couple of physicians who led the way, Tom Price and Tom Coburn, but it didn't.

She says that spurred a return to the dark ages, ever since 2017, where Republicans haven't done anything to try and fix the problem. So these bump-ups that we're going to see have nothing to do with the expiration of these COVID super subsidies.

It totally has to do because Obamacare is a flawed system that isn't working. And yet, I guarantee you, watch your colleagues in some of the red states wimp out and decide that we're going to pretend that we care, and we're going to renew these subsidies.

HASSETT: Right.

Well, the bottom line is that we made some progress with the previous bill, and a lot of people share your opinion about Obamacare.

Kernen, a staunch Trump supporter calls red states wimps if they reinstate ACA subsidies for their constituents if they do indeed expire, but that is just hogwash.

The ACA is working with subsidies just fine and red state governors understand this as much as blue states do. Taking the subsidies away, which Republicans are doing, will destroy the affordability of health care for millions of people, including many Trump voters.

The right thing to do to contain healthcare costs is add a public option. Had that been done in 2010, costs would have been pushed down from the start.

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