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healthcare
Mike Johnson Sits Stone-Faced as GOP Voters Plead With Him to Cave to Dems' Healthcare Demands
“I’m begging you to pass this legislation,” said a Republican caller whose children rely on medication. “My kids could die.”
Oct 10, 2025
House Speaker Mike Johnson has stuck to the Republican Party's script regarding the US government shutdown that began more than a week ago when the GOP refused to include an extension of healthcare subsidies in a spending bill—but voters from both sides of the aisle made clear to him Thursday on "Washington Journal," the C-SPAN call-in show, that they aren't buying the claim that Democrats are holding crucial spending hostage.
“I’m begging you to pass this legislation,” said a Republican caller named Samantha, who identified herself as a military mom from Virginia. “My kids could die.”
Samantha explained that her children are "medically fragile" and said a missed paycheck for her partner, a service member, on the 15th would be catastrophic for her family.
“If we see a lapse in pay come the 15th, my children do not get to get the medication that’s needed for them to live their life,” she said. “As a Republican, I am disappointed in my party and I’m very disappointed in you because you do have the power to call the House back."
Republican C-SPAN caller to Mike Johnson: "As a Republican, I'm very disappointed in my party,and I'm very disappointed in you, because you have the power to call the House back. You refuse to do that just for a show." pic.twitter.com/3gxdXxtsDj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2025
Johnson (R-La.) has not called the House back into session since September 19. Military members' paychecks are affected by government shutdowns like the one that began October 1 after the GOP refused to sign on to a Democratic stopgap proposal to keep the government funded through the end of the month, with $1 trillion in the Republicans' Medicaid cuts restored and Affordable Care Act (ACA) chbsubsidies extended.
Republicans including Johnson have persisted in claiming the Democratic proposal would give free healthcare to undocumented "non-Americans" and have demanded that Democrats relent and vote for a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for seven weeks.
Johnson told Samantha that "Democrats are the ones preventing you from getting a check"—but she made clear that she wasn't convinced of that.
“You could stop this and you could be the one that could say: ‘Military is getting paid,'" said the caller. "And I think it is awful and the audacity of someone who makes six figures a year to do this to military families is insane.”
Johnson said earlier this week that he supported calling the House back to vote on a stand-alone bill to ensure service members and air traffic controllers are paid during the shutdown, but walked back his support on Wednesday.
Another Republican caller from Texas asked Johnson, considering that the GOP passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allows the ACA subsidies to expire and could raise monthly premiums by an average of 75% for millions of households, whether the party has a plan to improve the program.
The House speaker offered only more claims that "illegal aliens" and "able-bodied men without dependents" have been "draining the resources" in the Medicaid program and said the Republicans "have a lot of ideas to fix" the ACA.
C-SPAN CALLER: What is your plan to fix Obamacare?MIKE JOHNSON: Great question. There's a lot of improvement that's needed. Obamacare did not do what was promised. We gotta fix that. In the big beautiful bill we reformed Medicaid.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 9, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Mimi Gergees, the host of "Washington Journal," pressed Johnson on whether there is "a plan that we can read and find out more about," but the GOP leader replied only that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump are "setting up the conditions" to develop a healthcare proposal.
A poll by KFF found last week that 78% of Americans want Congress to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the ACA's exchanges. A CBS survey released this week showed that more Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats.
Other callers lambasted Johnson on Trump's efforts to federalize National Guard troops and deploy them to cities including Chicago and Portland, Oregon, where Republicans have insisted the White House is responding to crime, chaos, and "war-ravaged" conditions caused by immigrants and anti-fascist protesters.
“Everybody is smiling here" following Trump's deployment of the National Guard to Washington, DC, said Johnson. "The sun is shining again.”
A Democrat from Colorado called in to say that the comment, made amid reports of federal agents pointing weapons at civilians and using force against protesters and journalists in Chicago, was "dystopian and insane."
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'Full of Sh*t' Texas Cops Lied About Why They Used AI Surveillance to Track Woman Who Had Abortion
"This is what cruel, abusive men seeking to exert power over women do," said a pair of reproductive rights reporters.
Oct 08, 2025
Police in Texas—led by a county sheriff later charged with an unrelated felony sex crime—lied about their motive for using artificial intelligence-powered surveillance technology to search for a woman who allegedly self-administered a medication abortion, new documents obtained by 404 Media and Electronic Frontier Foundation revealed on Tuesday.
In May, 404 Media's Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler reported that the Johnson County Sheriff's Office tapped into 83,000 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras manufactured by Flock Safety while conducting a nationwide search for an unnamed woman who authorities said took abortion medication in alleged violation of a 2021 state ban that empowers anti-abortion vigilantes to sue anyone who “aids or abets” the medical procedure.
Since thata law's passage—and the right-wing US Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization the following year—Texas has passed additional forced birth laws banning nearly all abortions as well as targeting providers who mail abortion pills from other states.
According to Cox and Koebler, Johnson County Sheriff's deputies accessed Flock cameras in states where abortion is legal, including Illinois and Washington. Johnson County Sheriff Adam King told 404 Media at the time that his department searched for the woman because "her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.”
“We weren’t trying to block her from leaving the state or whatever to get an abortion,” King said. “It was about her safety.”
NEW: Cops in Texas told 404 Media in May they used Flock to find a woman who self-administered an abortion out of concern for her safety. Documents now show police were conducting a “death investigation” and discussed whether they could charge her with a crime: www.404media.co/police-said-...
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— 404 Media (@404media.co) October 7, 2025 at 6:30 AM
King's office, forced birth advocates, and Flock Safety subsequently attempted to gaslight those who reported that deputies searched for the woman as part of a probe into potential violations of state laws.
However, new documents and court records obtained by the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and shared with 404 Media show that Johnson County Sheriff's deputies initiated a "death investigation" of a "nonviable fetus" and discussed prosecuting the woman for allegedly self-administering an abortion.
"To no one's surprise, they were full of shit," Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung wrote Tuesday for Valenti's Abortion, Every Day Substack.
As EFF's Dave Maass and Rindala Alajaji noted:
In recent years, anti-abortion advocates and prosecutors have increasingly attempted to use “fetal homicide” and “wrongful death” statutes—originally intended to protect pregnant people from violence—to criminalize abortion and pregnancy loss. These laws, which exist in dozens of states, establish legal personhood of fetuses and can be weaponized against people who end their own pregnancies or experience a miscarriage.
In fact, a new report from Pregnancy Justice found that in just the first two years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases charging pregnant people with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth—most under child neglect, endangerment, or abuse laws that were never intended to target pregnant people. Nine cases included allegations around individuals’ abortions, such as possession of abortion medication or attempts to obtain an abortion—instances just like this one. The report also highlights how, in many instances, prosecutors use tangentially related criminal charges to punish people for abortion, even when abortion itself is not illegal.
"By framing their investigation of a self-administered abortion as a 'death investigation' of a 'nonviable fetus,' Texas law enforcement was signaling their intent to treat the woman’s self-managed abortion as a potential homicide, even though Texas law does not allow criminal charges to be brought against an individual for self-managing their own abortion," Maass and Alajaji added.
Valenti and Cheung asserted that "this is what cruel, abusive men seeking to exert power over women do: harass them over their abortions."
They were referring not only to the Texas woman's "vindictive, controlling partner" who tipped off police—and was later convicted of pistol-whipping and choking her—but also to King, who, despite being recently arrested and indicted on four felony sexual harassment charges, was allowed to return to work part-time. King was also previously indicted in August for alleged sexual harassment and corrupt influence for allegedly retaliating against a witness.
"These are the kind of men who target women for their abortions," Valenti and Cheung wrote. "It’s a trend that AED warned about in our 2025 predictions: that the anti-abortion movement would increasingly rely on aggrieved and abusive men to do their dirty work."
They continued:
Since November, top Texas-based anti-abortion activists have bragged about recruiting men to sue over their partner’s abortions. Jonathan Mitchell is one of the anti-abortion attorneys leading that charge: after his client Marcus Silva sued his ex’s friends over her abortion, he tried to use the case to blackmail her into resuming a sexual relationship. At this point, even Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is reportedly recruiting men for this purpose.
"This isn’t about a few bad actors—but the predictable outcome of living in a reproductive police state bent on surveillance and punishment," Valenti and Cheung said. "And in a moment when pregnancy criminalization is on the rise, it’s vital we understand how this police state operates."
The willingness of Republicans including US Vice President JD Vance to embrace the tracking of women who have or are seeking abortions has raised alarms among reproductive rights advocates.
"Reproductive dragnets are not hypothetical concerns. These surveillance tactics open the door for overzealous, anti-abortion state actors to amass data to build cases against people for their abortion care and pregnancy outcomes," Ashley Kurzweil, senior policy analyst in reproductive health and rights at the National Partnership for Women & Families, told 404 Media Tuesday.
“Law enforcement exploitation of mass surveillance infrastructure for reproductive health criminalization promises to be increasingly disruptive to the entire abortion access and pregnancy care landscape," Kurzweil added. "The prevalence of these harmful data practices and risks of legal action drive real fear among abortion seekers and helpers—even intimidating people from getting the care they need."
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What's at Stake in the Shutdown Fight? Affordable Healthcare
If the Republican funding plan passes unopposed, not only could 24 million ACA users see a doubling of their premium costs, but most Americans could see their premiums rise.
Oct 08, 2025
Healthcare access in this country is in grave danger —and your wallet could be, too. Those facts are key to understanding the latest government shutdown.
“My kids have healthcare through Medicaid—which is especially important for my daughter with autism,” Alexis Cortes, a mom of four, told me. But “the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ calls for massive cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and early childhood education programs,” she warns.
Also at issue are the 24 million Americans who benefit from the soon-to-expire tax credits that help them afford their health coverage on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace. When Republicans passed their tax cuts for billionaires and corporations in this summer’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, they intentionally left out renewing this credit that helps regular people afford healthcare.
As a result, according to KFF Health, not only could the 24 million ACA users see a doubling of their premium costs, but most Americans could see their premiums rise if this tax credit isn’t renewed.
The 80% of us who object to defunding our families and communities just so the rich can get richer need to make our voices heard.
Coupled with the over $1 trillion that the GOP bill gutted from Medicaid in order to fund those massive tax giveaways to billionaires, Americans are about to experience significant reductions in their access to health coverage, long-term care, nursing home care, and hospital care, especially in rural areas.
This is what’s at stake with the current government shutdown on Capitol Hill.
The Republican majority is trying to pass a stop-gap spending measure that sustains President Donald Trump’s mass firings of public servants, maintains his freeze on nearly half a trillion dollars meant for our communities, and keeps their cuts to everything from education to healthcare, food assistance, student loans, and even cancer research.
Some lawmakers want to stop this calamity from happening.
The Democrats have a counterproposal to fund the government that restores this healthcare funding, keeps costs under control for families already grappling with high costs of living, and prohibits illegally freezing appropriated funds. But with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, the Democrats’ proposal hasn’t been able to pass.
Nearly 80% of Americans—including most Trump supporters—agree with Alexis, telling pollsters they want lawmakers to restore those expiring ACA credits.
Unfortunately, President Trump is disingenuously claiming that Democrats aren’t agreeing to the massive healthcare cuts because they want to spend taxpayer dollars on undocumented immigrants instead.
This is untrue. Undocumented immigrants pay taxes but aren’t allowed to get government healthcare benefits. Period. The president and his allies are telling this lie in an effort to gut your healthcare.
Trump is also vowing to use the government shutdown as an opportunity to enact mass federal worker firings and to deny funds to states that voted against him. That means “blue states”—including plenty of red and purple communities inside them—are being denied funds for projects like building roads and bridges as a form of punishment.
Trump also instructed that the email signatures of government employees blame Democrats for the government shutdown. The administration has posted similar false and partisan messages on some executive branch agency websites.
Together, these measures may violate at least four federal laws against misappropriating or freezing federal funds, or spending them on partisan activity—including the Anti-Deficiency Act, the Hatch Act, the Anti-Lobbying Act, and the Impoundment Control Act.
Meanwhile, families like Alexis’s are scared and struggling, wondering how they will be able to care for their families when their health coverage vanishes or becomes unaffordable.
The 80% of us who object to defunding our families and communities just so the rich can get richer need to make our voices heard. The sooner we do, the sooner the government can reopen and our families can receive the care and services we need.
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