House Speaker Mike Johnson said he spoke with Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) last week to tell her Republicans are “working around the clock” to bring healthcare prices down, after she vocally criticized Republicans throughout the week for the government shutdown and split from her party in deploring rising costs.
“I had a thoughtful conversation with her on the phone the other night,” Johnson told host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.”
Johnson said Republicans on the committees of jurisdiction were the ones leading discussions on the shutdown and healthcare subsidies — committees he said Greene isn’t a part of but that he’s now invited her to sit in on.
“Marjorie does not serve on those committees so I offered to have her come in the room and be a part of that discussion if indeed she wants to do that,” he said.
He said Republicans have “hundreds of ideas literally on the table” to make healthcare more affordable, but pointed to Democrats voting against reopening the government as the main obstacle blocking those plans.
Greene has spent much of the past week bucking her party’s leaders for failing to pull the government from the ongoing shutdown, specifically splitting from the GOP in rebuking rising healthcare costs. Democrats have said they’ve been forced to take drastic action since many Americans are set to lose their coverage or see prices increase drastically.
“I’m carving my own lane,” Greene wrote on X last week. “I’m absolutely disgusted that health insurance premiums will DOUBLE if the tax credits expire this year.”
“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING,” she continued.
Greene has also needled her party on a string of other high-profile topics in recent weeks, like calling the war in Gaza a “genocide” and calling for the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Johnson brushed off Greene’s jabs on health care last week, telling reporters that she wasn’t in the loop because she doesn’t serve on the committee handling those issues, saying: “She’s probably not read that in on some of that.”
