When a handful of Democrats broke with their party last month to join Republicans in ending the longest government shutdown in history, they cheered a promise they had extracted from the G.O.P. that Congress would soon have the opportunity to extend the expiring health care subsidies that had been at the heart of the fight.
But one week out from a Senate vote on the matter, there appears to be no viable path to doing so. Instead, history appears to be repeating itself on Capitol Hill, where disruptive shutdowns often end with the promise of action on the contentious issue that caused them — only to tee up a failed vote that yields no resolution.
That was the case back in 2018, when Democrats demanded a bill to protect certain undocumented immigrants from deportation as a condition of funding the government. Republicans refused, and the government briefly shut down before Democrats relented, enticed by a G.O.P. promise to hold future votes on an immigration measure. But neither party’s proposal could pass, and no progress was made on the issue.
It could be déjà vu next week with the health care subsidies.
With most Republicans opposed to the expiring tax credits, the 60 votes needed to approve any extension do not exist in the Senate, and it is not clear that any proposal could make it to the floor in the House.
Democrats believe, though, that there is a big difference between the most recent shutdown and the one they engineered a little under eight years ago, when they abruptly ended it after realizing public sentiment was not on their side. This time, they argue, their risky strategy of shutting down the government to put a spotlight on health care costs has paid off in a way that Republicans will ignore to their political peril in next year’s midterm elections.
“It’s different than any other shutdown because we forced them to debate on our turf, and they lost a dramatic amount of ground,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said in an interview. “They are just stuck.”
Republicans deny that they are in a tough spot, and say it is Democrats who will feel the political pain for having instigated a shutdown that did considerable damage to government institutions and Americans who rely on government services. They condemn Democrats’ bid to bolster any part of the Affordable Care Act given that its costs are soaring, and have said major changes are needed, though they have yet to propose any.
“They caused massive pain,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Republican, said of Democrats. “And they got nothing for it.”
Democrats, he added, are seeking three more years of “Covid bonus payments without a change to the law — not a single reform to deal with the waste, the fraud, the abuse and the corruption of these payments of Obamacare.”
Members of both parties in both chambers have been engaged in talks aimed at finding legislation that could pass the Senate and avoid a rise in premiums under the 2010 health law when the tax breaks enacted by Democrats during the pandemic expire at the end of the year. But no agreement has emerged.
“I don’t think at this point we have a clear path forward,” Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, told reporters this week.
In the absence of bipartisan agreement, Mr. Schumer on Thursday announced that Democrats would use their promised floor time next week to push a three-year extension of the subsidies.
“Republicans have one week to decide where they stand,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Vote for this bill and bring health care costs down, or block this bill and send premiums skyrocketing.”
Despite that Democratic framing, the proposal is a non-starter for most Republicans, who at minimum want to tighten eligibility for the tax credits and allow a shorter extension, if they do anything at all.
“I don’t see any way under the sun that we would support an extension of the current broken system,” said Senator John Cornyn, a veteran Texas Republican up for re-election next year. “We know that the cost trajectory is unsustainable.”
Strenuous opposition also exists among House Republican leaders to renewing the subsidies, and it is unclear if the House would take up legislation should the Senate pass something. When President Trump hinted recently that he might be ready to reach some agreement with Democrats to extend the subsidies and avoid the political fallout, Republican leaders quickly talked him out of the idea, and the White House has been mostly silent on the issue since.
Some Republican senators believe action is needed now or early next year to avoid a spike in insurance costs or people dropping coverage altogether. A bipartisan push has also emerged in the House, where a group of Republicans and Democrats released a proposal on Thursday for a two-year extension that would scale back the subsidies.
“As I see it, we have no choice but to modify and extend these tax credits to get us some time to find a permanent solution to this pressing problem,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said on Wednesday.
But for now, no deal to do so has emerged, leaving Congress without a path forward as Americans face price increases and lawmakers look toward the midterm elections.
Mr. Schumer argued in the interview that his strategy to center the shutdown fight on the subsidies had set Democrats up to benefit regardless of whether they succeed in winning an extension.
With voters focused on affordability and Republicans already on the defensive for imposing steep cuts to Medicaid in their sweeping tax-cut law, he said, it had been clear to him that health care “ought to be the tip of the spear.”
“So we ended up on our front foot,” Mr. Schumer said of his party’s position on health care. “And they ended up really hurting with the American people.”
Carl Hulse is the chief Washington correspondent for The Times, primarily writing about Congress and national political races and issues. He has nearly four decades of experience reporting in the nation’s capital.
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