Obamacare Battle Brews & Hollywood Suffers Slump | 11.14.25

Summary

Podcast Summary: Morning Wire

Episode: Obamacare Battle Brews & Hollywood Suffers Slump | 11.14.25
Date: November 14, 2025
Hosts: John Bickley & Georgia Howe

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Episode Overview

This episode of Morning Wire delves into three hot-button issues dominating headlines:

1. The looming battle over expiring Obamacare subsidies as pandemic-era support sunsets and partisanship grows on Capitol Hill.
2. Hollywood’s dramatic financial slump, with October marking the worst box office in nearly 30 years, and insiders sounding the alarm about a broken system.
3. A deep-dive into a federal contracting program intended for minority-owned businesses, now under scrutiny amid widespread fraud accusations.

The hosts, alongside Daily Wire reporters and analysts, provide data, expert insight, and on-the-ground perspectives on these pressing developments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Obamacare Subsidies and Political Showdown

(Segment Start: 02:13)

• Context: With the government shutdown ended, Democrats and Republicans are clashing over whether to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies.

  • Pandemic-era ACA subsidies, expanded in 2021 and extended previously, are set to expire at the end of 2025.
  • These subsidies now support 24 million Americans, up from 11 million pre-pandemic.

• What’s at Stake:

  • Extension Cost: Projected to increase the deficit by $358 billion through 2035 (per Congressional Budget Office).
  • Broadened Eligibility: Income cap was removed, allowing even those earning over 400% of the federal poverty level to receive subsidies.

• Democrats’ Position:

  • Framing the upcoming midterms around health care, arguing that letting subsidies expire will spike costs for millions.
  • Emphasize the risk to “millions of Americans” if Republicans “fail to act” (Amanda Prestigiacomo, 03:42).

• Republicans’ Position:

  • Want subsidies to expire as was originally planned ("They want them to expire when the Democrats scheduled them to expire" – Amanda Prestigiacomo, 04:48).
  • Argue Obamacare has failed, requiring major reform or replacement.
  • Point to premium spikes—143% increase since ACA's inception, with another 26% hike expected next year.

• Concerns Over Fraud and Abuse:

  • “At Paragon, we believe that there’s upwards of 6 million people that aren’t actually within that income category that are claiming credits...”
    — Ryan Long, Paragon Health Institute (04:15)
  • COVID-era changes led to massive enrollment in $0 plans, much of which is suspected to be fraudulent in some states.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “Today, it’s over 11 million people who have Obamacare [who] never use their policies, which means they often don’t know they have it and yet we’re still stuck with the bill.”
    — CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, via Ryan Long (05:18)
  • “I’m calling today for insurance companies not to be paid, but for the money, this massive amount of money to be paid directly to the people of our country so that they can buy their own health care.”
    — Former President Donald Trump (05:53)

• Possible Policy Changes:

  • Trump is advocating for funds to be channeled directly into personal health savings accounts (HSAs).
  • Senator Rick Scott drafting corresponding legislation.

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2. Hollywood’s Box Office Slump

(Segment Start: 07:29)

• Record-Low Revenues:

  • October 2025 marked the worst box office since 1997 (excluding pandemic closures).
  • Halloween weekend, typically a horror film goldmine, earned just $49.8 million nationwide—the lowest in over three decades.

• Recent Flops:

  • Disney’s Tron Ares: $38M opening—franchise worst.
  • A24’s The Smashing Machine (starring Dwayne Johnson): $11M opening.
  • Bruce Springsteen biopic: only $9M.
  • In total, October take was only $425M vs. over $800M for October 2019 (Joker made $900M alone that month).

• Root Causes:

  • Lack of "must-see" movies and creative risks.
  • Overreliance on safe, formulaic sequels and unoriginal projects.
  • Absence of major event films to attract audiences.

• Industry Analysis:

  • “There was just nothing commercially exciting enough to mainstream audiences to drive them in huge numbers...if not for those anime movies, we’d be looking at an even worse situation.”
    — Paul de Garabedian, Comscore analyst (09:52)
  • Veteran directors (Michael Bay, James Cameron) express frustration that the ‘system is afraid of risk’—creative ideas are rarely greenlit now.
  • Bay shifting to independent projects for more creative freedom, citing lack of empowered studio execs.

• Cultural Shift:

  • Streaming and social media continue to disrupt, but deeper creative stagnation is the bigger problem.
  • On social media: “It’s all about the lack of creativity.” — Georgia Howe (11:47)

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3. Minority Contracting Fraud in Federal Programs

(Segment Start: 12:24)

• The Issue:

  • 8A "set aside" contracting, intended to boost minority or disadvantaged business participation with lucrative no-bid contracts, is mired in exploitation and minimal oversight.

• Mechanisms of Abuse:

  • Contracts, sometimes in the tens of millions, are funneled to companies that only nominally meet eligibility, with much of the work done by white-owned or large corporate partners.
  • “...the big, big non-minority owned companies… wind up actually doing a lot of the work as subcontractors or like 49% owners.”
    — Luke Rosiak (13:18)

• Notable Exposé:

  • James O’Keefe released undercover audio where an official admits, “65 [percent] for us being the prime...and you pay these, like, Accentures to do the job...it’s really minimum work.” (14:09)
  • The so-called minority-owned firm is run predominantly by white executives, with the ‘minority’ status leveraged primarily for contract access.

• Government Response:

  • SBA’s Kelly Loeffler: “There is a full review of the 8A program underway and it’s already found institutionalized abuse to the tune of billions of dollars.”
  • Several companies removed from government contract eligibility, cases forwarded to law enforcement.
  • Senator Joni Ernst: “Small business contracting programs were never intended to function as welfare systems for favored classes or give no-bid contracts to do-nothing companies...” (15:07)
  • Despite reforms, the underlying set-aside categories remain in place.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Obamacare Subsidies Fraud:
  “There are three to four times as many people enrolled in 100–150% of poverty, these $0 plans, than there are people actually in those income brackets... massive amounts of fraud.”
  — Ryan Long (04:15)

• Box Office Slump:
  “...this has been the worst October on record since 1997, with the exception, of course, of that COVID pandemic year.”
  — Megan Basham (07:50)

• Broken Hollywood System:
  “Even [Michael Bay] now says that he’s turning to independent filmmaking so that he can be more creative... too few original ideas, and a growing reliance on the algorithm.”
  — Megan Basham (10:31)

• Minority Set-Aside Loopholes:
  “They can have a shortcut to getting these big contracts by partnering with this Indian company, which basically has an automatic in because of its part ownership.”
  — Luke Rosiak (14:23)

• Reflecting on Reforms:
  “Small businesses contracting programs were never intended to function as welfare systems for favored classes or give no bid contracts to do nothing companies over the decades penalties against rule breakers have not been swiftly and resolutely imposed.”
  — Senator Joni Ernst (15:07)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:13] – Introduction to the Obamacare subsidy battle
• [04:15] – Ryan Long discusses subsidy fraud statistics
• [05:18] – Ryan Long on “ghost” Obamacare enrollment
• [05:53] – Trump statement on redirecting insurance funds to Americans
• [07:29] – Hollywood’s box office struggles segment begins
• [09:52] – Paul de Garabedian on lack of compelling films
• [10:31] – Megan Basham shares industry leaders’ creative frustrations
• [12:24] – Luke Rosiak on minority set-aside contracting abuse
• [14:09] – Covert admission of contract skimming in audio clip
• [15:07] – Senator Joni Ernst critiques system corruption

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains a brisk, fact-driven tone with clear critical analysis, leveraging expert testimony and hard numbers while allowing space for firsthand industry and political perspectives. The hosts maintain a conversational but assertive approach, consistent with Morning Wire’s positioning as a news-first, opinion-informed program.

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Summary prepared for listeners who want to catch up on the major national debates around health care subsidies, the alarming downturn in Hollywood, and ongoing federal contracting abuses—without the filler.

Transcript

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[John Bickley]

The end of the shutdown sets the stage for a new battle on Capitol Hill.

[Georgia Howe]

The fate of Obamacare as pandemic era subsidies head toward expiration. Why are Democrats so insistent on saving them?

[John Bickley]

The people that are watching, it's like the Democrats.

[Megan Basham]

We, we, we designed these to expire.

[Ryan Long]

This wasn't something the Republicans are taking.

[John Bickley]

That's how we designed this. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, November. This is Morning Wire.

[Paul de Garabedian]

49.8 million for the entire Halloween weekend. Domestically, you have to go back to the 90s again to find a box office that low for Halloween.

[Georgia Howe]

Hollywood suffers a monstrous slump in October as big name directors sound the alarm over what they say has become a broken system.

[John Bickley]

And a federal contracting program meant to lift up minority owned businesses finds itself in a swamp of fraud accusations.

[Georgia Howe]

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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[Georgia Howe]

With the shutdown finally ended, the fight between Democrats and Republicans over health care subsidies and the fate of Obamacare is only ramping up.

[John Bickley]

Here with the latest on the health care battle raging in D.C. is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo. Hey, Amanda. So Democrats largely blame their unwillingness to reopen the government on health care. Republicans won that first round, but we're nowhere near done. So first, walk us through these Obamacare subsidies, which are really at the heart of this issue.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, so these Affordable Care act, often called Obamacare subsidies, were expanded during COVID in 2021. The subsidies, which are technically tax credits, they were only supposed to last two years, but Democrats extended them once again, and now they're expiring at the end of this year. Currently, there are about 24 million Americans who are on ACA plans. That's up from 11 million at the start of the pandemic. So a huge increase due in large part to these subsidies. It's estimated that about 42% of 2025 ACA enrollees pay less than $10 a month, with a vast majority paying nothing at all. Notably, Democrats remove the income cap for subsidy eligibility. So people who are earning over 400% of the federal poverty level, they qualify for these subsidies as well. Now, as for the cost of all of this, the Congressional Budget Office says that extending the subsidies through 2035, that would increase the federal deficit by about 358 billion DOL.

[John Bickley]

Why are Democrats so insistent that these subsidies are the answer?

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, well, Democrats have been reports that they really want to make the midterms all about health care. And their message is that inaction from Republicans here will drive up health care costs for millions of Americans. I spoke to Ryan Long, a senior research fellow at Paragon Health Institute, to explain all of this, and he said that if these subsidies expire as scheduled, people on ACA plans will once again return to paying something, even if it's just a very small amount, instead of having access to these $0 plan. He said that those $0 plans actually have led to a lot of widespread fraud and abuse.

[Ryan Long]

At Paragon, we believe that there's upwards of 6 million people that aren't actually within that income category that are claiming credits as if they were in that income category. In certain states, there are three to four times as many people enrolled in 100, 150% of poverty, these $0 plans than there are people actually in those income brackets. So these Covid credits have just produced massive amounts of Frau fraud.

[John Bickley]

And Republicans, they generally don't want to extend these subsidies. What are their arguments?

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, they want them to expire when the Democrats scheduled them to expire. They argue that Obamacare is a failure, it's in need of serious reforms or a whole new system. Premiums, for example, they rose 143% in the first six years after the ACA took effect, and next year, premiums are set to rise another 26%. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, for example, he just recently went off on the many problems with Obamacare and how he sees American taxpayers effectively being cheated.

[Ryan Long]

Today, it's over 11 million people who have Obamacare never use their policies, which means they often don't know they have it and yet we're still stuck with the bill. When Obamacare was created, they take a step back because this is the original vision. 50% of the people on Obamacare were supposed to be paid for by the government. 50% were supposed to be spending their own money. Now it's 95% government funded because we drove out all the private sector people by overpaying.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

As for the fate of Obamacare, President Trump has really amped up his calls to move on from the quote, obamacare madness. Here's Trump on Wednesday.

[Ryan Long]

I'm calling today for insurance companies not to be paid, but for the money, this massive amount of money to be.

[John Bickley]

Paid directly to the people of our.

[Ryan Long]

Country so that they can buy their own health care.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Trump already seems to be getting a lot of support from congressional Republicans. In fact, Florida Senator Rick Scott says that he's writing up legislation to put this HSA stuff account idea into action.

[John Bickley]

All right, so maybe witnessing the beginning of the end of Obamacare here. We'll see. Amanda, thanks so much for reporting.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

You're welcome.

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[John Bickley]

Hollywood is in a major slump with October marking the worst box office revenues in nearly 30 years. Even Halloween weekend, usually a horror cash machine, failed to draw audiences.

[Georgia Howe]

Here to explain what's ailing Tinseltown is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. So, Megan, not great news on the horizon for Hollywood right now. What's going on?

[Megan Basham]

Yeah, Georgia. So as John said, this has been the worst October on record since 1997, with the exception, of course, of that COVID pandemic year when the theaters were all closed. But perhaps even more alarming is the fact that this was the worst Halloween weekend in 31 years. So really, nobody came out to theater. Nobody got any of that box office revenue up. And I think a big culprit here is the fact that there were simply no must see movies. Even those movies that had big stars and where Hollywood tried to generate a lot of buzz, well, audiences weren't really interested and the reviews were pretty mediocre. So just to go through some of them, Disney's Tron Ares opened to only 38 million. That was the franchise's worst debut. A24's the Smashing Machine with Big A Lister, Dwayne Johnson. You would expect that to go. It didn't. It made only 11 million. And then there was the Bruce Springsteen biopic. Lot of people were excited for that, we thought. But it only made 9 million. So the total October take here was only 425 million. By comparison, the Joker made more than double that for the month of October alone just six years ago. That's how bad things are now. The first couple of releases that we're seeing in November aren't faring much better. A lot of people thought that Christie starring it girl Sydney Sweeney would blow up the box office, but turned out to be a major flop. You do have some people blaming politics on that, but I think that's probably a stretch. I would say more likely. The explanation here is that Sydney Sweeney's core fan base of young men who like to see her looking young and gorgeous were not so interested in seeing her play an unattractive tomboy type boxer. Veteran com score analyst Paul de Garabedian told finance outlet Cheddar News that without a couple of Japanese anime movies that actually outperformed expectations, the story here would be even worse.

[Paul de Garabedian]

There was just nothing commercially exciting enough to mainstream audiences to drive them in huge numbers. And, you know, last year there was a Venom movie that opened at $50 million in October. We didn't have that this year. And so I think that definitely hurt the box office. Also, August was down about 25% over August of last year. September down only about 2%. You had the conjuring in the mix there. Again, if not for those anime movies, we'd be looking at an even worse situation.

[Georgia Howe]

So is this just the ongoing disruption we've talked about from streaming and or social media, or is there something more fundamental going on?

[Megan Basham]

I mean, yes, obviously that kind of creative destruction is always playing a role, but not necessarily in the way that we think. So you're hearing from a lot of veteran filmmakers that are complaining that the way Hollywood does business is no longer the same and it is much harder to get creative ideas greenlit than it was in the past. So because of that, what we're seeing is audiences getting kind of tired of seeing the same old safe scripts. So you have these well known, well established filmmakers, people like Michael Bay and James Cameron, complaining that creative ideas just aren't able to get across the finish line anymore. And they say that something bigger may be broken in Hollywood. In an interview just a few months ago, Bay voiced frustration over what he called a system afraid of risk. Now we're talking about somebody who is the king of big blockbusters. And even he now says that he's turning to independent filmmaking so that he can be more creative. He said that Cameron told him that no individual executives are empowered to greenlight those creative ideas anymore. And so the result is too many sequels, too many, too few original ideas, and a growing reliance on the algorithm to decide what gets made.

[Georgia Howe]

Well, and if you look at social media comments, it's all about the lack of creativity. Megan, thanks for reporting.

[Megan Basham]

Yeah, my pleasure.

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[Georgia Howe]

The Trump administration is turning its eye on a long running DEI program that may be one of Washington's most corrupt.

[John Bickley]

The federal government awards a percentage of contracts based on the company's owners being, quote, socially disadvantaged. But they may not even be the ones doing the work. Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak joins us today. Discuss. Hey, Luke, so you've been digging into this. What exactly is going on here?

[Luke Rosiak]

Hey, John. So this is a program called 8A contracting, or set aside contracting, where certain contracts, which could be tens of millions of dollars, are either given to one company with no competition outright or limited, so that only, quote, disadvantaged companies are eligible to bid on them. And so basically, racial minorities and also women owned companies. So right off the bat, when you're not competing for contracts. You're not getting the best price or the most qualified company.

[John Bickley]

So this lessens competition and potentially quality of the work that's produced.

[Luke Rosiak]

Exactly. In fact, I'd argue that a lot of the poor performance we see in the federal government, like websites that seem like they're out of the 1990s, is because of this. This has been the way that things worked in Washington for decades. Everybody kind of gets their piece. Disabled veterans, which veterans like Alaska Native corporations, which shores up support from Republican lawmakers from that state. And then the big, big non minority owned companies who wind up actually doing a lot of the work as subcontractors or like 49% owners. So James O' Keefe had a great expose last month. You might have seen where an official from one such company called ATI Government Solutions seemed to admit to just that.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

So the new contract is basically close to 100 million. What's the percentage that API will retain from that hundred million?

[Luke Rosiak]

65 for us being the prime.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

And you pay these like accentures to do the job.

[Megan Basham]

And so it's really minimum work.

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Honestly, that's really, in reality, that's what's happening.

[Luke Rosiak]

So this is a company that gets contracts because it's owned by Native Americans? In part. But of course, the guy we just heard speaking, well, he's the wrong kind of Indian. If you look at ATI's website, all the executives actually seem to be white. The website is almost entirely focused on selling the IT idea that it's easier for government officials to just skip the annoying parts of their job running a competition to find the best company to do something. And also, it's good for big companies because they can have a shortcut to getting these big contracts by, by working with or partnering with this Indian company, which basically has an automatic in because of its part ownership.

[John Bickley]

All right, so they've arranged sort of a perfect little loop here where everyone seems to benefit. So what are officials saying about this?

[Luke Rosiak]

So Kelly Loeffler, the head of the Small Business Administration, said there's a full review of the 8A program underway and that it's already found institutionalized abuse to the tune of billions of dollars. She said that ATI CEO, a guy named Firmage Crutchfield, has a network of seven different companies, all of which has been suspended from receiving new contracts. And she says their names have been provided to law enforcement. Senator Joni Ernst, who's chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, said the Biden administration tripled the goal for minority set asides from 5 to 15% and did little to make sure those companies were actually doing the work instead of serving as what they call pass throughs. Ernst said, quote, small businesses contracting programs were never intended to function as welfare systems for favored classes or give no bid contracts to do nothing. Companies over the decades penalties against against rule breakers have not been swiftly and resolutely imposed. I will say I've been documenting these pass through schemes and these problems with minority contractor for more than a decade and they continue to go on. Even in the first Trump administration, in my opinion, there wasn't much deterrence. Now the Trump administration is also rewriting the federal acquisition regulations, which is a big deal even though it's kind of wonky inside Washington stuff. But so far I haven't seen anything in those rewrites that would abolish this category outright.

[John Bickley]

Well, 5 to 15% of all federal contracting dollars is a big number, so I'm glad they're at least taking a look at fraud. Luke, thanks so much for digging into this and coming on anytime.

[Georgia Howe]

Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show now, you can watch us for free on Daily Wire plus, we'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know. There are now fewer than 2,000 Daily Wire Lifetime memberships remaining.

[John Bickley]

Turns out having all access benefits for life with no renewals. Something everyone wants.

[Georgia Howe]

If you still want one, here are your options. You could buy one while they're still.

[John Bickley]

Available or you could win ours.

[Georgia Howe]

That's right. We have our very own lifetime membership we're going to give away and it's really easy to enter your name. To win.

[John Bickley]

All you gotta do is download the free Daily Wire app in the App Store, open it and tap follow under our picture. That's it. You're entered.

[Georgia Howe]

And who knows, we could be calling you to give you our personal lifetime membership.

[John Bickley]

Before any of that happens, you need to download the Daily Wire plus app and follow us inside it now to enter to win.

[Luke Rosiak]

Win.

[Georgia Howe]

Good luck.