The President speaks.
Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

As you probably know, we are entering the final week of a presidential race tied between Kamala Harris And Donald TrumpPennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes being the prize most desperately sought by both campaigns. Team Trump is already having a tough week in the Keystone State thanks to a crude racist joke about Puerto Rico that one of Trump’s comedian friends told his wild gathering at Madison Square Gardenwhat does not go down well among central bloc of Puerto Rican voters in northeastern Pennsylvania. Now, Harris has received a helping hand in the same neighborhood from none other than the Speaker of the House. Mike Johnsonlike NBC News reports:

House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed Obamacare at an event in Pennsylvania on Monday, telling the crowd there would be “massive” changes to the health care system in the United States. United if Donald Trump wins the election.

“Health care reform will be high on the agenda. When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive agenda for the first 100 days, we still have a lot on the table,” Johnson, R-La., said in Bethlehem while campaigning for the GOP nominee in the House, Ryan Mackenzie, according to video footage obtained by NBC News.

“No Obamacare?” one attendee asked Johnson, referring to the law passed by Democrats in 2010, also known as the Affordable Care Act.

“No Obamacare,” Johnson replied, rolling his eyes. “The ACA is so deeply entrenched that we need massive reform to make it work and we have a lot of ideas on how to make it happen.”

Health care is not at all something Trump wants Republicans to talk about. The effort to repeal Obamacare was one of less popular initiatives of his first term as president, and it is no coincidence, one of his biggest failures. This is also one of the areas in which Harris has surpassed him. He added to his problems during the September debate with his rival when he could only cite “concepts of a plan” to replace Obamacare although he has allegedly spent many years on his own proposal which has not yet been revealed.

Worse, Johnson’s remarks very strongly suggest two potentially dangerous things about Trump in the eyes of influential voters: (1) he plans to make repealing Obamacare an immediate priority if Trump wins and Republicans control Congress, which probably means that this would be integrated into a gigantic budget reconciliation bill and steamrolled to the passage if possible; and (2) his party’s health care policy designs are radical, designed to replace regulations essential to Obamacare’s coverage guarantees with “free market” provisions that will almost certainly return the health care system to the time when insurers are aggressively discriminated against against any elderly, sick or poor person. Johnson’s rhetoric will also give Democrats an opportunity to remind voters that the latest “Obamacare repeal” package was intended to decimate Medicaidthe federal health care program for the poor and a key part of the nation’s social safety net. Beyond that, Johnson seemed to be telling Pennsylvanians that a re-elected Trump wouldn’t care if his health care plans made Americans unhappy, according to NBC:

“We want to take the blow to the regulatory state. These agencies have been used as a weapon against the people, it crushes the free market; it’s like a boot on the neck of job creators, entrepreneurs and risk takers. So health care is one of the sectors and we need it across the board,” Johnson said. “And Trump is going to think big. I mean, he’ll only have one more term. I cannot run for office. And so he’s going to think about legacy and we’re going to fix these things.

Taking the “blowtorch” on health care regulations that guarantee coverage for pre-existing conditions and limit price discrimination is probably not what influential voters are hoping for in a Trump administration that presents itself as offering a return to American greatness. And the Harris campaign is surely grateful that Trump’s loyal ally in Congress is making it known. Could this be the “little secret” Trump cryptically said he and Johnson would reveal it after the election? If so, the speaker spilled the bean in the wrong place and at the wrong time.