Fellow Republicans are furious with House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s decision not to allow a standalone vote to extend expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of this month.
The credits were enacted during the pandemic to lower premiums for Americans buying insurance through ACA marketplaces. Johnson announced at a GOP press event this week that he had explored options to find a “pressure release valve” for those who wanted a vote on the ACA subsidies, but that “there was not an agreement,” leaving the House without a scheduled vote, according to Axios.
Several GOP centrists have expressed their frustration to the press regarding the lack of action over the credits. Representative Mike Lawler of New York told reporters he was “pissed” and even called the leadership’s refusal to allow a vote “idiotic.” Lawler added at a GOP press conference that “We worked on [a deal] all the way through the weekend, in fact.”
Republican New Jersey representative Jeff Van Drew stated that it would be a “bad move” to allow the subsidies to expire, according to Politico, adding that he was “worried about my colleagues. There’s a lot of good people who won by one, two, three, or four votes. Do I think this issue is worth a couple points in an election? Yeah, I do.”
The lack of an extension of the tax credits could make insurance premiums for more than 22 million marketplace enrollees 100% more expensive in the new year. Several lawmakers reportedly are now considering procedural maneuvers, such as a discharge petition to force a vote despite leadership opposition. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania filed such a petition to bring a two-year extension bill directly to the floor.
He told reporters, “It’s a time-sensitive matter, and it’s an existential matter. You try to do things through the normal course. You try to do things through regular order. You know, [when] all those remedies are exhausted, then you’ve got to go this route, unfortunately.”
Other Republicans who have signed the discharge petition include Rep. Lawler, Rob Bresnahan, and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, Nick LaLota of New York, Don Bacon of Nebraska, and Kevin Kiley of California.
Democrats, for their part, have been unified around calls for a clean, multi-year extension of the subsidies. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders have resisted compromise on shorter or more conditional extensions, arguing that their approach is the only viable path to prevent sharp premium increases.
Lawler, Fitzpatrick, and Kiley have said that they would be open to signing onto Jeffries’ petition but doubted that it wouldn’t die in the Senate.
