Rep. Bacon on Ending the Shutdown

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Veterans Day twenty twenty five, this November eleventh, again a
reminder ceremony over at Memorial Park at eleven this morning.
And with that we welcome retired Air Force general and
Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon the program. Don, good morning, Good to.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Have you, Ony. That's great doing a couple of vetters
the events today. And I guess we're going to be
getting the government back open.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah tomorrow, yes, okay, So give us the latest on
the next steps here. I know. Mike Johnson, the Speaker
said to you guys, you better start coming back now
in case you have travel delays. But you're headed back
when today.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
And we're heading back today and the vote I'm totally
be four o'clock tomorrow. I don't think it's a slam dug.
I mean, I agree grateful to the eight Democrats and
the Senate who voted to break this shutdown, which was unnecessary,
hurt a lot of people that didn't need to hurt,
and accomplish Nothingsin or angus all, he said, the shutdown

(01:01):
accomplished nothing and it wasn't working. But the Democrats are
so fullly unified in the House against us. And then
when you have a couple of propriations bills added in.
It runs the risk of losing a couple of Republicans,
but I'm sure we're going to work that hard. And
President Trump came out strongly for the bill, so I
know I'm a yes, I want to get the government

(01:21):
back open.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Who would you say? As wobbley? Tom Massey, as new
Gingrich told us, says no to everything and then ask
what the issue is, So he's probably a no. Who
else might be wobbley?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
But we have a few people in the Freedom Caucus
who they're going to look at these three bills. You know,
there's twelve appropriations bills typically, and in this CR they
put three of them that are bipartists, and they passed
out of the Senate and the House of Proporations committees
with Republicans and Democrats support. So they attached these three
bills to the CR. They set was fund one fourth

(01:54):
of government through September thirtieth. See if we had another shutdown,
say in January, these portions of government will always be funded,
all right, so that they will not shut down. But
you always run the risk with some bipartisan bills, and
a few people will say Hey, I they don't like
anything that has a Democrat vote on us, So you
run the risk of losing a couple of Freedom Caucus guys.
But we should be able to go some Democrats because

(02:16):
of that. And but you know the speak the leader
Jefferies is whipping votes. He's trying to get every single
Democrat to vote no against us, which is I think wrong.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Now you're working with Tom Swasey, who's a moderate Democrat
from New York on healthcare. Now, don you're not going
to be around after this year, so you're you're kind
of up against the clock. But walk us through what
the essence of the discussion you're having with a Democrat
to try and come up with real legislation to effect

(02:48):
not just the cost of health insurance, but the cost
of health care.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, first of all, we know we need some reforms
to our entire healthcare. Obama is unaffordable. It's not affordable healthcare.
You know, it's unaffordable healthcare for many people. Now, if
you're low income, you're getting subsidies, and if you're preexisting conditions.
I mean, there's some benefits in there, but there are
a lot of folks that are earning eighty ninety thousand dollars,

(03:14):
they get no subsidies or very little subsidies, and their
insurance rates are double and triple over time. That's the reality.
I think we should be working for long term fix,
which I have some ideas. But in the meantime, these
tax credits that were put in in twenty twenty one.
I was listening to your show earlier. As you've already said,
they expire in thirty one December. If nothing is done,

(03:35):
the average person on ACA, if you're middle incomer or
they're going to double their premiums. I think that's unacceptable, right,
So I most Republicans, I'm not saying all, most would say, Okay,
let's we got to work something out here in an
interim agreement. And I've listened very carefully to Speaker Johnson
john Soon, and I know where their red boundaries are at,

(03:56):
or the red lines are at, and what I know
what John Souon would like. He would like income caps
around two hundred thousand. That's negotiable. That's what we put
in our framework that you don't get these premiums. If
you're earning over two hundred right now, you'd be earning
six hundred thousand dollars, you get these tax credits, and
then also a third of this money doesn't even go
to individuals premiums right now, they just go through these companies.

(04:19):
So we'd say every dollar on these tax credits have
to lower someone's premiums. It's got to be one for one,
you know, reduction, and I want to build that we're
submitting today that also has to pay for to pay
for this Basically, by the way things are coded, they're
going to be reducing some of the money that is
going out there to the insurance companies and it will

(04:41):
be a pay for in the ACA. So I'm trying
to cap the income. I'm trying to sure it's going
to individuals premiums and make it an interim extension, which
gives us time to do I think better reforms.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Because we need to reform insurance health insurance in this country.
Non nobody saw this coming. Accept the insurance companies. They
saw the ACA Act as a gold mine because of
the options that they would have in the form of
forcing people to pay for their own health insurance, whether
it's through the government exchange or their own. But how
much tolerance do you think there is on Capitol Hill

(05:16):
to truly reform the way health insurance is paid for
and meet it out in this country because you know,
as you know, these guys spend a lot of money
on campaigns.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well it always goes very negative. So you get attacked.
I mean, we did work requirements for Medicaid, right in
other words, if you're a healthy person without small children,
are we expect you to work twenty hours a week.
You got attacked for that, by my point being, it
got attacked by the Democrats saying you're taking kicking people
off healthcare. We no, seventy one percent of Americans want
people to work if they're healthy, and it's only a

(05:48):
twenty hour a week work requirement, and that was della
dog by the Democrats. So it makes it very hard
to find I think good common sense for for so
what I think the real problem is was they put
all the high risk people in the same pool. So
if you're a healthy twenty five year old, your rates
went up. So they said, okay, I don't need it

(06:08):
till they got out everybody else's rates one even higher up.
And so we need to help lower the cost of
high risk people's healthcare and if we could separate that
out and directly help them, the most people's in shorts
rates that go down, and I think that there's so
that that's one way of trying to solve the solve
this problem. I know there's other ways out there as well.

(06:30):
We've got some great ideas here in Omaha. We have
a place called sink right and that you play a
flat rate every month. It's reasonable and you get unlimited
outpatient care. So there are there's different.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
That's a huge, huge issue with many angles. Obviously, Don
we got to run here. But bottom line, you think
tomorrow the House will vote to approve.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
I do, and I think some modern democats are gonna
come there senses that this does not working, But right
now they're pretty unified. We've got twenty four hours. Do
they really want to keep one point four million people
federal workers not getting paid, the forty two million people
on snap not getting helped. That's what they're doing right now.
So I think that people that come to their sensus
tomorrow will get it.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Done, all right. Congressman Bacon, thank you Don Bacon here
on KFABS Morning News