For the past two weeks, MAGA-aligned Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, has been blaming House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) for the federal government shutdown.
Breaking with her party’s congressional leadership, Greene has criticized the decision not to negotiate with Democrats over the extension of tax subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, an issue she says her constituents are deeply concerned about.
On social media, Greene asked her followers: “If there was very detailed pricing transparency in the healthcare industry from doctors, surgeries, treatments, pharmacists, literally everything directly to patients, without health insurance, would that appeal to you?”
If there was very detailed pricing transparency in the healthcare industry from doctors, surgeries, treatments, pharmacists, literally everything directly to patients, without health insurance, would that appeal to you?
Like concierge and/or a la carte medical care that frees…
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
(@RepMTG) October 12, 2025
Billionaire Mark Cuban, founder of Cost Plus Drugs, gave a lengthy reply which included an assertion and a question: “For most people in this country, employers, taxpayers and patients absorb the risk of payment. Insurance companies rarely take risk. It’s time to ask why we use them at all?”
This week, the fourth of the government shutdown, Greene said she “demanded to know from Speaker Johnson what the Republican plan for healthcare is to build the off-ramp off Obamacare and the ACA tax credits to make health insurance affordable for Americans. Johnson said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call.”
The first thing to ask for is divestiture of subsidiaries of any healthcare company with more than 100b in annual sales.
AND, a moratorium on all new acquisitions by those same companiesThat is the only way to return to a free and efficient market.
Until then, they have… https://t.co/5bMhLSbuyY
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) October 30, 2025
Cuban again replied, writing to Greene: “The first thing to ask for is divestiture of subsidiaries of any healthcare company with more than 100b in annual sales. AND, a moratorium on all new acquisitions by those same companies That is the only way to return to a free and efficient market. Until then, they have captured the entire healthcare industry and influence how and why we spend $5T per year, to their own benefit, at the expense of patients.”