‘The Clock Is Ticking’: GOP Obamacare Turncoat Says He Had ‘No Choice’
Isaac Schorr
Wed, December 17, 2025 at 6:36 PM UTC
2 min read
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Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) condemned both parties’ leadership in the House of Representatives while discussing his decision to side with Democrats and force a vote on Affordable Care Act subsidies during an appearance on CNN Wednesday.
After anchor Dana Bash asked him if Republican leadership had failed on this issue, Lawler replied:
Look, we had a government shutdown for 43 days, and Democrats said this was an existential crisis. And so when the government reopened, I sat down in a good faith, bipartisan way with my Democratic colleagues and my Republican colleagues to broker a compromise piece of legislation that would extend the subsidies, but put serious reforms in place. We worked to get that through our House Republican leadership, to have them put it on the floor for an up-or-down vote, and let the process work, and allow the House to do its business.
Ultimately, we could not reach agreement with House Republican leadership about putting those bills up for a vote. We introduced them as discharge petitions, 11 Republicans signed on to two of those bipartisan compromise bills. We do not have enough Democrats on them. The clock is ticking, and so ultimately I and three others, Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan, and Ryan MacKenzie, were left with no choice but to sign the three-year discharge and force an actual vote on the House floor. Ultimately, if it passes the House, it’ll have to go to the Senate. We saw this three-year bill fail in the Senate last week when Chuck Schumer put it up for a vote. So the final product will have to be a compromise. And that’s been my point from the start. Do the work! Do the bipartisan compromise, and frankly, Dana, this is important. Both leaders, both leaders have failed here because we don’t have a bill on the floor, and Hakeem Jeffries is sticking with his three years or bust with no reforms, so it creates a real challenge to get something done.
The Republican went on to spar with Bash over the extent to which Democrats can be blamed for the impending healthcare cost crisis, to defend Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), and continue to call for a “bipartisan compromise.”
Watch above via CNN.
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