House Republicans unveiled a new health care proposal Friday as they aim to address concerns about rising health insurance costs just weeks before enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire.
The legislation would codify and expand health plans for small businesses, fund reductions of premiums for low-income people in the individual health insurance market, and increase transparency in prescription drug pricing, according to House Republican leadership aides.
The proposal would also allow for a separate vote on an extension of the premium ACA tax credits, which subsidize health insurance for most of the 24 million Americans who buy their coverage on the Obamacare marketplace — the central demand Democrats and moderate Republicans have made in the recent health care debate.
The House is expected to vote on the proposal next week before leaving Washington for a two-week holiday break. It is unclear if the proposal could succeed in the Senate, where it would require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
House GOP leadership aides said that the chosen policies have “strong consensus” among House Republicans and that each part of the package has previously been voted on in the lower chamber with bipartisan support. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has been meeting with factions of the GOP conference all week to decide which provisions could succeed in the narrowly divided chamber.
“We have some low-hanging fruit, we have some things that every Republican agrees to,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday.
Moderate Republicans are expected to offer an amendment to the plan that would extend the ACA subsidies, but leadership aides declined to say which proposal would be put forward for a vote before the full House. Two bipartisan groups in the House have sought to force a vote to extend a tweaked version of the ACA subsidies.
“If we thought that just dealing with the other components of health care were adequate, and not addressing [the ACA subsidies], then we wouldn’t be discharging our bills,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), who is leading one of the bipartisan efforts.
Neither of the bipartisan plans includes broader abortion restrictions, which most Republicans are demanding must be included in any ACA subsidy extension. Democrats have said they cannot accept more restrictions on abortion coverage.
That’s likely to become a dividing line as the GOP plan is considered in the House. If the amendment to extend the ACA subsidies doesn’t include additional abortion coverage restrictions, most House Republicans are likely to reject it. It’s unclear whether enough Democrats would join the bipartisan group to overcome GOP opposition.
The GOP plan follows months of debate over the ACA subsidies, which are set to lapse at the end of the year. Democrats’ effort to extend them before they expire triggered the longest federal government shutdown in history and pushed Republicans — who largely oppose extending the premium tax credits — to explore alternatives that could bring down the price of health care.
Senate Democrats agreed to end the shutdown in exchange for a vote on a health care proposal. They backed a clean three-year extension of the subsidies, which was rejected by the upper chamber Thursday.
Senate Republicans’ plan — which would give many Americans up to $1,500 in tax-free accounts to spend on health care instead of extending the subsidies — was also rejected. The House plan does not include a similar proposal.
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