Here and Now
US Sen. Ron Johnson on Issues Congress Faces as 2026 Opens
Clip: Season 2400 Episode 2427 | 9m 22sVideo has Closed Captions
Ron Johnson on ACA tax credits and federal actions in Minnesota and Venezuela.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, discusses issues facing lawmakers over ACA tax credits, deployment of federal agents in Minnesota and Trump administration actions toward Venezuela and Greenland.
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Here and Now is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin
Here and Now
US Sen. Ron Johnson on Issues Congress Faces as 2026 Opens
Clip: Season 2400 Episode 2427 | 9m 22sVideo has Closed Captions
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, discusses issues facing lawmakers over ACA tax credits, deployment of federal agents in Minnesota and Trump administration actions toward Venezuela and Greenland.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship>> Fallout from federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis continues this week with six federal prosecutors.
They're resigning over the assignment to investigate the widow of the 37 year old mother shot and killed by an Ice agent.
And Thursday was the last day of open enrollment for marketplace Affordable Care Act plans, with early indications showing 1.4 million fewer enrollees than last year.
But the U.S.
House last week voted to extend those credits, with 17 Republicans joining, including Wisconsin third Congressional Representative Derrick Van Orden.
To check where that measure goes in the Senate, we turn to Wisconsin's U.S.
senators, Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Ron Johnson, who joins us now.
Senator, thanks very much for being here.
>> Thanks for having me on.
>> So what do you know about any compromise to be had on the extension of these ACA enhanced credits?
>> Well, I appreciate you reporting it accurately.
We're talking about the enhanced credits for the supposedly 24 million people on the exchanges.
More than 22 million will still get the Obamacare subsidies, which were very generous.
The only people losing subsidies are people making over 400% of the poverty line.
That's about 1.6 million people.
And I'm actually working with the couple Democrat senators to address those individuals because they are facing unbelievably high premiums because of Obamacare.
It is so destroyed.
The individual market.
Some of these folks close to retirement are facing premiums of 36, $38,000 a year.
So I'd like to help them.
But again, I really have there's no reason to extend the enhanced temporary pandemic subsidies for people who still will retain the Obamacare subsidies.
>> What kind of traction is that?
Getting your proposal to maintain credits for those at 400% above poverty?
>> Well, what I've been told is there are enough Democrats who will co-sponsor that.
But right now, I think they're still holding out hope that they can extend all the subsidies.
I just believe that's dead on arrival here in the Senate.
We voted that down multiple times during the shutdown.
That's that's just not going to happen.
>> Were you surprised by the 17 Republicans in the House who voted to extend those enhanced credits?
>> No, I think the issue has been so misreported.
It's been so misrepresented that I think there are people in very close districts were concerned about that misrepresentation.
They constituents that, no, they want to help them handle the extremely high premiums.
But but remember, the reason premiums are so high is because Obamacare is just flawed.
It's it's it's an awful structure.
It forced a very small percentage of the American population.
Those 24 million people on the individuals change to completely bear the cost of covering people with preexisting conditions.
So that's the reason why premiums, since the implementation of Obamacare have increased four times rate inflation.
So again, it's completely failed.
And the only thing the subsidy is doing right now is they're masking that.
It's certainly helping people.
ought to fix Obamacare.
We repair the damage done and transition to a system that would actually work like.
Well, the root cause of our health care financing system is the third party payer system.
Somebody else is going to pay the the.
Provider, the, you know, the costs of, of the procedures and, and the medical services.
All we pay for is insurance.
It's way too high or we pay our taxes.
So until you actually reintroduce consumerism, where consumers know what things cost and they're concerned about what things cost.
Right now, doctors don't know.
Nurses don't know, patients don't know.
The only people know are the bean counters.
So that's a completely flawed system.
You've removed all the benefits of a free market, competitive system out of health care.
So you don't have lower costs, you don't have better quality, you don't have better service.
So again, return consumerism, free market competition in there.
Now providers aren't going to incentive in our current health care system is to increase prices because everybody is taking a percentage cut off it.
They'd rather take a percent cut off something cost $10,000 rather than five.
So it's about consumerism.
That's the >> On immigration enforcement.
Minneapolis obviously continues to be a powder keg.
How does the president, invoking the Insurrection Act, bringing in U.S.
military help or hurt?
What's going on there in your mind?
>> Well, what you ought to do is take a look at different states, those cooperating with Ice as we try and administration tries to clean up this enormous mess left behind by Biden and Democrats, who opened up our borders versus those states that are resisting where local law enforcement actually holds illegal immigrants that have committed crimes so that Ice can pick them up peacefully at the jails.
You're not seeing a problem.
Where you're seeing a problem is where you have insurgents like Governor Walz and the mayor inciting people to resist and obstruct justice.
And that led to the tragedy of that one woman's death.
>> Do you have concerns that Wisconsin will be similarly embroiled?
>> I would hope that Wisconsin county sheriffs and local officials would cooperate with Ice.
I think generally they do.
We don't we do not have, you know, pockets of large illegal immigration, immigrants in the state of Wisconsin.
So it's not as big an issue here as it is with the Somali population and others in Minnesota and some of these other big cities.
>> Do you feel like public benefits fraud in Minnesota justifies the Trump administration to surge ice there?
>> That's not why they're doing it.
They're two totally separate issues.
>> And yet that has been something that the president has spoken to.
>> Well, again, you have a, you know, large Somali population that now we are seeing evidence of how much they are defrauding the federal government on a host of government programs, you know, flying $700 million of cash out of the Minneapolis airport.
Again, there's some real problems there, but that's separate from the illegal immigrants.
And quite honestly, the sanctuary cities, sanctuary states like Minneapolis and Minnesota, where you don't have local officials working with Ice to peacefully turn over people they've detained, have committed crimes.
Other states that do it.
You don't have these problems.
>> You stated this week that you do not want to see immigration enforcement action on farmers.
Do you have any assurances on that?
>> Just that, you know, for example, President Trump was not happy with the raid, I think the Hyundai plant.
So people here that are working, contributing, that is not the people that Ice is, is primarily going after right now.
They're going after the criminals.
Now, if you're associating yourself with people who have committed crimes, if you get caught up in those enforcement actions, I mean, if you've come to this country illegally, you've committed a crime as well.
But that's not who the Trump administration is >> Do you support on the kind of world stage do you support the administration's actions in Venezuela, or threats against Iran, or even looking at Greenland?
Do you support that kind of foreign policy.
>> Is undeniably good, that Maduro is no longer the illegitimate leader and destroying Venezuela.
Now, what comes next?
I don't know if the mullahs could be replaced by the Iranian people.
That would be a good thing for the world.
They are a menace.
Greenland.
From my standpoint, I'm not worried about a military invasion there.
I think it's appropriate for President Trump to understand and point out what a strategic how strategically, strategically important Greenland is.
And I think there's probably more and more intelligence coming out, exactly what Russia and China may be doing there.
And we need to make sure that Greenland is protected for NATO and for for America and for our own national security.
>> What do you think average Wisconsinites care most about right now?
Do you think it's the cost of living?
>> Sure.
Always has been, always will be.
And it's difficult to, you know, once you've devalued the dollar to the extent we have over the over the decades, a dollar held in 1998 is only worth $0.51 as recently as 2019, that dollar's worth $0.80.
And so the 40 year high inflation incurred during the Biden administration that permanently devalued the dollar.
So, you know, those a lot of those prices, they're not going to go back down.
Now there are certain commodities like energy gasoline you noticing because we actually are encouraging drilling and energy production.
Gasoline prices are going down.
You know, I think a more rational approach to bird flu is is probably bring down the price of eggs.
So there are certain things we can address.
President Trump right now is and I had a briefing in terms of what he's doing to make sure that European countries or other developed countries pay the same price we pay for drugs.
So they don't free, free, free load off of our innovation.
That will also help things, you know, in terms of pharmaceutical pricing.
>> All right.
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