A discharge petition has been filed by a collection of Democrat and Republican representatives to try and force a vote on enhancing ObamaCare subsidies.
The GOP has been scrambling to piece together a new healthcare plan before the end of the year but seem to be coming up short. Inaction has pushed Republican representative Brian Fitzpatrick to pull together a co-led bill calling for enhanced subsidies for two years. Doing so has bypassed Republican party leadership, which The Hill reports oppose extending the expiring subsidies.
Rep. Fitzpatrick, however, believes now is not the time for “BS politics” and that action must take precedent. He said, “This is personal to a lot of us. These are our friends and our neighbors that are losing sleep over this. So we just have no time, no patience, for the BS politics that sometimes consumes this place. This is real life.”
Fitzpatrick has paired with Democrat representatives Jared Golden, Tom Suozzi, Don Davis, and Marie Gluesenkamp as well as Republicans Don Bacon, Rob Bresnahan, and Nicole Malliotakis on the bill. Said bill would try and bypass leadership and force a vote on a bill to extend the enhanced subsidies.
The petition requires 218 signatures, though it is currently unclear whether the discharge petition has the majority support in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson could bring the bill up earlier than the seven-day legislative period if he wished to, but that would be after the petition hits its signature goal.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is pushing a similar petition too, with a chance to extend the enhanced benefits for three years with no reforms.
Moderates in the Republican party are, as Jeff Van Drew suggested, worried about the longer term effect the delayed bill will have. He said, “This is the right thing to do in the short period of time, if we have to live with the ACA in order to be able to keep people whole.”
“I’m worried about my colleagues. I really do care about them. 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.”
Some in the GOP believe Donald Trump would confirm his backing if the House managed to reach an agreement. An unnamed lawmaker said, “I like the Speaker, but he’s the one that drew the line in the sandbox. This is not the president. If we could come to an agreement, he will support it.”
Malliotakis added, “I think he [Trump] understands how critical this is, and he would like to do something, but this is obviously a difference of opinion between him and the Speaker that needs to be reconciled.”
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