by Matthew Holloway | Dec 10, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs is pressing House Republican leadership to move quickly on a sweeping market-based overhaul of federal health-care policy, as enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies approach their scheduled expiration at the end of 2025.
In a letter co-signed by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) and Reps. Eric Burlison (R-MO), Clay Higgins (R-LA), and Eli Crane (R-AZ-02), Biggs wrote, “Republicans have solutions, and it’s time to implement them.”
The proposal outlined by Biggs is designed as a free-market alternative to Obamacare and reflects key elements of President Donald Trump’s healthcare agenda. Supporters argue the framework would shift federal policy away from government subsidies and toward consumer-driven healthcare.
“The time for half measures is over,” Biggs wrote to Speaker Johnson. “The American people deserve healthcare reform built on freedom, affordability, flexibility, and choice—not more subsidies, red tape, or handouts for insurance companies.”
Under the proposal, conservatives would allow the expanded ACA premium tax credits to expire, arguing the subsidies have inflated healthcare costs, expanded federal dependency, and funneled taxpayer dollars through insurance companies rather than directly to patients. As Breitbart News noted, the framework draws on nine Republican proposals, including those of Reps. Greg Steube (R-FL), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Kevin Hern (R-OK), Bob Onder (R-MO), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Gary Palmer (R-AL), and Chip Roy (R-TX), as well as Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), and Rep. Andy Biggs’s own Health Savings Accounts for All Act.
The framework emphasizes expanded Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), allowing individuals to use tax-advantaged dollars for insurance premiums, prescriptions, and other medical expenses. It also promotes interstate insurance competition and expanded access through Association Health Plans; reforms aimed at lowering costs through market competition.
Biggs and his fellow conservatives argue that Obamacare’s structure relies too heavily on mandates, subsidies, and centralized control, which they say have driven up premiums while limiting consumer choice, particularly for self-employed individuals and those in the gig economy.
The plan also includes provisions to codify restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortion and reinforce conscience protections for healthcare providers, aligning with longstanding conservative policy priorities.
For Arizona, the debate carries direct implications for large numbers of independent contractors, small-business owners, and self-employed workers who often face high ACA marketplace premiums and limited plan options. Expanded HSAs and portable insurance plans could offer greater flexibility for those groups.
“This is a clear blueprint,” Biggs added in his letter to Speaker Johnson, “Americans should be able to take cost-sharing reduction payments and underlying Obamacare subsidies straight into their pockets, giving them control instead of funneling money through insurers.”
At the same time, thousands of Arizonans currently rely on ACA subsidies to offset insurance costs. If Congress allows those enhanced credits to expire without a complete replacement, some households could see premiums rise sharply in the short term.
The framework is not a single bill, but a coordinated package of existing legislative proposals intended to serve as the backbone of a broader GOP healthcare overhaul. With subsidies set to sunset in 2025, and 2026 midterm elections looming, Republican lawmakers face growing pressure to either replace the current system or risk widespread premium increases ahead of the 2026 election cycle.
Fellow Arizona Congressman Eli Crane, who co-signed the letter, amplified the effort on X, writing, “Let’s get it done.”
Biggs concluded his call-to-action writing, “The House must act with clarity and conviction. These reforms should be brought to the floor without delay. If we plant our flag now, we can rebuild a healthcare system that reflects true conservative principles and puts power back where it belongs, in the hands of patients, not bureaucrats or insurance companies.”
Biggs’ push effectively forces the debate into the open. It will compel Congressional Republicans to publicly choose between pursuing a complete market-based reset of federal healthcare policy or seeking a more limited adjustment to the existing ACA structure.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Elizabeth Troutman | May 9, 2024 | News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Starting in November, recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in Arizona and nationwide will be able to obtain health care under the Affordable Care Act.
The Biden Administration finalized the rule Friday surrounding President Joe Biden’s efforts to urge Congress to establish a pathway to citizenship for “dreamers,” young people who have grown up as Americans but do not have citizenship.
“Dreamers are our loved ones, our nurses, teachers, and small business owners,” President Biden said in a statement. “And they deserve the promise of health care just like all of us.”
Biden announced plans in April to open Obamacare and Medicaid rolls, both subsidized by American taxpayers, to nearly 600,000 DACA illegal aliens.
Mario Montoya, a DACA recipient who has lived in the country for over two decades, told KTAR News 92.3 FM he wants to inform almost 21,000 dreamers in Arizona about the expansion of Obamacare coverage.
He said the final rule from the White House was a step forward but fell short of his expectations by not including access to Medicaid or funding under the CHIP and Science Act, as was initially proposed last year.
While Montoya advocated for the expansion of federal programs accessible to dreamers, he acknowledged that the fate of these programs is uncertain at this time.
“The DACA program is still being litigated at the courts and the Supreme Court is ultimately going to have the final decision to see if the program is going to stay,” Montoya said.
U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat who represents District 7 in southern Arizona, said in a statement that he thinks the move will expand access to affordable health insurance for thousands.
“Illness does not discriminate on the basis of documentation or legal status,” Grijalva said. “Access to timely health care is advantageous for those families and our communities as a whole.”
Senators J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., as well as several House Republicans, lobbied Biden to drop the plan last year, but the administration moved forward anyway.
“By providing health insurance to DACA recipients, this policy further burdens programs intended to serve U.S. citizens and simultaneously encourages more aliens to enter our country illegally in the hopes of receiving similar protection and services,” the Republicans wrote. “Unfortunately, this approach appears to align with the open-borders agenda advanced by your colleague, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with hundreds of thousands of aliens apprehended trying to enter our country illegally every month.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | Nov 25, 2023 | Opinion
By Dr. Thomas Patterson |
Social Security and Medicare are so popular they are commonly known as the “third rail” of politics. Any politician who touches them gets a nasty shock. The politically smart thing for decades has been to periodically increase benefits and not worry too much about adequately funding these supposedly self-sufficient programs
Congress designates SS/Medicare as non-discretionary spending, which allows even fiscal conservatives to earnestly explain that Congress is unable to touch them, not even to reduce the benefit increases they themselves bestowed in the past. Of course, this is ridiculous since Congress could legally eliminate the programs if it chose to do so (not recommended).
As the population has aged and birth rates have fallen, SS/Medicare have descended into serious financial distress. This year, the programs will spend $69 billion more than they take in. The programs’ trustees recently moved the date for expected insolvency up to 2031 for Medicare, 2034 for Social Security.
Yet there is little acknowledgment from the political class that a problem exists. To acknowledge it creates a mandate for making highly unpopular choices. Even Donald Trump, the would be “conservative” leader, has decreed that no part of making America great again will involve touching our major entitlements. The endless quest for re-election continues to dominate decision making in Washington.
Even beyond entitlements, America has a spending problem. The federal government spends about 25% of GDP but only takes in revenues of 19%. The rest is charged off to future generations. With interest rates returning to normal levels, federal debt service will soon exceed $1 trillion a year, roughly what we spend to defend our country.
Why do we continue to spend so recklessly in times of peace and prosperity? It’s partly our perverse politics, where spenders dare opponents to suggest fiscal reforms and then rip them for bringing it up.
It’s also a mindset. Not long ago, families were considered the primary caregivers for each other. It was contemptible to neglect your own.
Americans today believe they are entitled to have government assume what were formerly family duties. Politicians gain millions of grateful dependents and family structure suffers, but there’s no going back.
Federal decision-makers have adopted an all-purpose solution to the problems that plague us: throw dollars at it. Schools failing? Send money. Semiconductor industry struggling? More money. People still living in poverty? Appropriate even more money. Money papers over our problems but affords no actual solutions.
Nobody even talks about the monetary implications of our ongoing border crisis. Over seven million mostly unskilled illegal immigrants breached our borders. Immediately upon successfully registering their fraudulent asylum claims, they expect food, shelter, medical care, transportation, eventually education, and social services all without a thought of paying for them.
The direct and indirect costs are incalculable, but California already reports annual direct expenses of $21.76 billion while Texas pays $8.8 billion and Arizona $3.2 billion.
Yet Democrats contend only more money can solve the problem. Biden and border czar Kamala Harris claim Republicans are responsible for the border mess because they once blocked further spending increases, even though the money goes to accommodate more illegal immigration. It’s time to end this massive farce and lawfully control the border. Democrats will have to find some less costly way to recruit future voters.
Our response to the COVID epidemic was another giant boondoggle. There wasn’t much to do about the virus. Protect the vulnerable, treat the ill, develop a vaccine, and allow it to run its course.
Instead, we embraced an orgy of spending. Trillions went to infrastructure improvements, solar energy, daycare, schools, businesses, and even individuals, all inexplicably in the name of COVID. It didn’t affect the course of the disease, but our descendants will pay for this spree far into the future.
It gets worse. In 2025, the spending caps on Obamacare and other discretionary items are set to expire as are the low interest bonds the government issued when money was cheap. There will be tremendous pressure to spend yet more just to maintain the spending status quo.
Thomas Jefferson, 250 years ago, extolled the benefits of a “wise and frugal” government. We didn’t listen. We will soon wish we had.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jan 15, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Democrats love to talk about the need of establishing a “universal” health care system that provides everyone with the same quality of care. That was the major theme pushed by the left and the media when Obamacare was signed into law in 2010.
We always knew that it was propaganda and that a government-run healthcare system would result in worse care for everyone. What we didn’t know is that the left doesn’t even support this claim. They do like the idea of providing different care to different people, so long as it promotes their radical, race-based social justice agenda.
Rationing COVID treatments based on race
To kick off the new year, health officials in Democrat-run New York made the call to prioritize non-whites as part of their criteria to decide who is eligible to receive monoclonal antibodies. And while white people can still receive the treatments, they’ll have to show that they have medical conditions that increase their risk for severe illness. Non-white patients, however, are automatically eligible.
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