Chief Hospital Corpsman Dom Navarro, from Orange County, Calif., counts patient gowns in the medical ward aboard Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is under fire over claims he made about Obamacare allegedly failing Americans, and his desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Asked if he supported repealing ObamaCare, Johnson told reporters that he believed the health care program “was created to implode upon itself,” and has “failed the American people.”

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“It was promised to be a great success, to make healthcare more affordable. It’s done exactly the opposite.”

He claimed that the “Republican Party is the party that has the plans to fix it,” and that it’s “a very, very complicated series of measures and steps that you have to take to fix it.”

Republicans have “lots of plans on the table,” he said, including, probably, “a hundred different ideas on how to fix it.”

“Now, it takes a long time to build consensus in a legislative body to do those kinds of things. And we have lots of plans on the table. We have whole caucuses who work on this around the clock all the time.”

Johnson has kept Republican House members in their home districts for weeks since the shutdown began.

He also pointed to the “reforms” Republicans made to Medicare, as an example of how they might fix the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

NBC News reported that “Johnson’s comments escalate the battle one day before the Senate is slated to return to Washington, albeit with no clear path to end the shutdown. It will test the patience and resolve of both parties as federal employees — including members of law enforcement, air traffic controllers and TSA staff — are slated to miss paychecks.”

U.S. Senator Patty Murray, the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, blasted the House Speaker.

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“5 minutes of mealy-mouthed lies,” she wrote in response to the Speaker’s claims. “Republicans wanted to repeal the ACA with no replacement—they failed. This summer, they cut $1 trillion from health care, gutting Medicaid & sabotaging the ACA.”

“They have no health care plan and they want to let your premiums more than double,” she said.

Democrats have demanded Republicans continue the Affordable Care Act subsidies they struck down in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” that will, they say, skyrocket premiums to possibly double or even triple current levels.