Thune: Republicans Offer Better, More Affordable Health Care Solutions for Americans

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WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:

Thune's remarks below (as delivered):

"As you all know, we're going to have a vote this week, on Thursday, on a Democrat proposal to deal with the Biden COVID bonuses.

"And this is a vote, as you all know, we could have had weeks ago.

"It's been on offer now before we had to go through a 43-day government shutdown.

"But that's what the Democrats opted to do, and so at the end of the 43 days now, we are going to have a vote on their proposal - which, as it turns out, is really a proposal that just extends the status quo, doesn't do anything to reform these Biden COVID bonuses in a way that would get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse.

"And I think the one thing that's clear about this, and I think you all who follow this subject know this, that the way that the program is structured, the money goes straight to the insurance companies.

"And the way that we think this ought to work is … you ought to come up with a way in which you can deliver the benefit to the patients and not to the insurance companies, and that you shouldn't have hardworking Americans subsidizing affluent people, people who make a lot of money, and that's what their proposal continues to do.

"There is no income limit.

"There are zero-dollar premiums.

"There are millions of Americans who don't even know they have coverage.

"And they have decided not to do anything - zero, zero reforms to this program - and so the bill that they're going to put on the floor will fail.

"But that doesn't mean that there isn't a path forward here.

"We also will have a vote.

"Our members have decided that we're going to vote on a Crapo-Cassidy proposal, which does the things that I mentioned.

"It actually does make health insurance premiums more affordable.

"It drives down, according to the Congressional Budget Office, premiums by double-digit levels.

"It delivers the benefit directly to the patient, not to the insurance company.

"And it does it in a way that actually saves money … to the taxpayer.

"That is a win-win proposal.

"So that is an alternative that we will put forward and that we will have a vote on … Thursday, and we'll see where the Democrats come down on that.

"But the fact of the matter is that as long as we have been talking about this subject - and again, they drug us through a 43-day government shutdown in order to do this - just in the last week, the Government Accountability Office came out with a finding and an audit that they did."

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"When I say waste, fraud, and abuse, I am not kidding.

"That is the finding as recently as this last week by the Government Accountability Office.

"This program desperately needs to be reformed.

"The Democrats have decided [they're] not going to do anything to reform it, and so we'll see where the votes are on Thursday."

Permalink: https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/12/thune-republicans-offer-better-more-affordable-health-care-solutions-for-americans