A bloc of House Republicans voted with Democrats to pass a bill Thursday that would extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced tax credits for three years.
In a 230-196 vote, 17 House Republicans bucked their leadership to join Democrats to revive the subsidies, which are intended to lower health-insurance costs for millions of Americans, after they expired on Dec. 31.
This is the latest installment in a drawn-out fight over the fate of the tax credits that motivated the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. It also inspired worry about messaging among Republicans and targeted ads against them, eventually dividing the party, with four moderate Republicans jumping on the Democrats’ discharge petition before the holiday recess to force the vote on the House floor.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the first Republican to sign the discharge petition in December, told reporters Thursday that the bill likely won’t pass in its current form in the Senate. Still, Fitzpatrick said, it’s a way to pressure lawmakers to find a solution on the expiring subsidies. Lawmakers are facing a tight deadline as the open enrollment period for ACA plans ends Jan. 15.
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“It’s breathed new life into the Senate,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a vehicle to send to them that they can then mark up. That’s how it’s worked with a lot of our bills.”
Fitzpatrick chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus alongside Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. The pair said in a video release that senators they met with on Thursday planned to keep working on a deal to reinstate the credits and implement a number of reforms. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday that the House-passed bill likely doesn’t have a future in the upper chamber as is, but noted that health care talks in the Senate have been “productive.”
“I don’t think there’s an appetite to do a straight-up extension,” Thune said. “We’ve had that already, but we’ll see what happens from the working groups and if they can come up with something that has reforms, and we can go from there.”
Rep. Rob Bresnahan, another member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, said the hope of continuing negotiations on ACA reforms in the Senate is why he and other Republicans joined the discharge petition.
“That’s exactly the intention of why we voted for it and entered the discharge petition to begin with, was to keep the conversations going, have the dialogue and come up with some kind of meaningful solution that ultimately will be signed the law,” Bresnahan said. “We had a great conversation with Problem Solvers today with some of the Senate counterparts.”
Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden told NOTUS he was “super uncomfortable” with his yes vote, adding that he thinks health-care reform should start in the House rather than the Senate.
“We’re just kicking the can down the road with these things because the Democrats broke the system,” Van Orden said. “But they made all of these folks, including a lot of my constituents, dependent on these programs.”
The House bill is the final surviving proposal of many that Congress debated recently to extend the subsidies, with the Senate last month blocking two bills to extend the subsidies, and House Republican leadership leaving the subsidies off their list of health-care cost proposals entirely.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican who did not vote for the three-year extension but previously signed a discharge petition to extend the subsidies for two years, also told NOTUS he doesn’t expect to see the bill move forward in the Senate. But, Kiley said, he is hopeful about the possibility of amending the bill in the upper chamber.
“I think that’s a good sign, and I’m looking forward to voting with that if it comes over here,” Kiley said. “That’s where the real action is. That’s a policy that would actually help people.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer singled out Republican leadership in a news conference Thursday, insisting the House-passed bill should go to the floor.
“The American people should ask Leader Thune, ‘Are you willing to put this bill that the House now is moving forward on on the floor of the Senate?’ Because it will pass, and that is the way to get this done,” Schumer said. “Right now Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson have said they don’t want to extend the ACA credits for a day, let alone a year. Most of the Republicans in the House and Senate want to put poison-pill riders about abortion on it. They are standing in the way. They ought to get out of the way so we can help the American people.”
President Trump has urged lawmakers to come up with a plan to help consumers avoid spiking health-care premiums, but he hasn’t engaged in negotiations on Capitol Hill to push any specific proposals.
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