A handful of moderate Republican lawmakers Wednesday joined congressional Democrats to force a vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits that could avert skyrocketing insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans, even as GOP leaders bulldozed ahead with a doomed plan of their own that would allow the aid to expire.
Four GOP moderates, including Westchester County Rep. Mike Lawler, broke ranks to support a Democratic-led effort to extend the Obamacare subsidies for three years in a stinging rebuke to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“There is great frustration about a very simple fact: we have a responsibility to govern,” said Lawler, one of only three Republicans who represent districts lost by President Trump in 2024. “These tax credits are going to expire at the end of the year and it has a direct impact on millions of Americans, including my constituents.”
Johnson was forced to insist that, “I have not lost control of the House” after the rare revolt dealt him a major political black eye.
Despite the headline-grabbing move by Lawler and three Pennsylvania lawmakers, the bill isn’t expected to get a vote until sometime in January, when millions of Americans will already be suffering from sticker shock from costlier insurance premiums, if they can still afford coverage at all.
The Republican-led Senate, which needs 60 votes to pass most legislation, is unlikely to pass the measure.
House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected efforts by some Republican moderates to win a vote on an amendment that would call for an extension of the subsidies along with a grab bag of conservative health care talking points. The bill has little to no chance of passing in the Senate, where some Democratic support would be needed for passage.
With President Trump mostly staying out of the health fight, the GOP squabbling virtually guarantees that millions of Americans will incur substantially higher insurance costs in 2026, a prospect with potentially major political consequences.
Democrats plan to run a scorched-earth campaign against dysfunctional congressional Republicans in hopes of flipping the House and maybe even the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.
In the Senate, a bipartisan group was still trying to come up with a compromise to extend the subsidies, which fueled this year’s government shutdown. But senators made clear that any potential legislation would only be possible after the holiday break and after the new higher prices hit consumers
Almost two dozen Senate Republicans and Democrats met late Monday to talk about a last-minute fix on the ACA tax credits.
They emerged from the meeting discussing ways to end the stalemate, including a possible two-year extension of the subsidies with reforms that would narrow who could receive them. They also discussed adding some version of a GOP proposal to create new health savings accounts that would help people purchase insurance.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the group would like to announce a proposal this week. But GOP Majority Leader John Thune conceded, “We’re not going to pass anything by the end of this week.”
