After more than a decade of opposing Obamacare’s healthcare subsidies, President Donald Trump is now considering proposing a two-year extension of the soon-to-expire tax credits.
The Hill reports his sudden reversal is putting Republicans in a bind and setting the stage “for GOP leaders in Congress to advance a program they deeply detest after warning for months of its harmful effects.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has led Obamacare opposition on Capitol Hill, arguing the program is irredeemable and needs a massive overhaul, if not outright repeal,” reports the Hill. “He and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) had refused to negotiate on the Democrats’ demand to extend the subsidies during last month’s fight over government spending — an impasse that led directly to the 43-day shutdown. While Thune promised Senate Democrats a mid-December vote on extending the subsidies, Johnson notably declined to make any such commitment.”
But the subsidies expire Jan. 1, which threatens to spike health care costs for roughly 22 million Americans who currently benefit from them. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports an individual making $28,000 pays around $325 for insurance with the enhanced tax credits in place. But if they expire, this same individual would pay nearly $1,562 annually. Similarly, someone making $45,000 could see their insurance rise an additional $1,836 a year on top of their original cost.
“The deadline has put Republican leaders into a no-win position,” reports the Hill. “If they extend the tax credits, they’ll go on record for the first time augmenting a Democratic law they deem noxious while infuriating a conservative base that’s spent more than 15 years trying to kill it.”
But if they don’t extend the subsidies, the out-of-pocket health costs for millions of voters will skyrocket heading into next year’s midterm elections, “when Republicans are already at risk of losing control of the House,” according to the Hill.
Faced with conservative outcry, the White House reportedly scrapped its plans to unveil the subsidy extension Monday.
Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.), a former physician, posted Monday on X that he was “hoping this isn’t true,” referring to reports of Trump’s plan to extend subsidies.
But critics attacked Onder under his post, with one commenter writing that more “average people participate in the [Affordable Care Act] than Democrats. You all are shooting yourselves in the face. Good job! Keep it up!”
The Hill reports GOP centrists are hoping the halt of subsidies is only a delay, not a cancellation, warning that congressional inaction would “spell doom for Republicans at the polls next November.” They urge GOP lawmakers to “hold their noses and prevent the cost cliff, even if it flouts their ideological sensibilities.”
“The politics of this are not a close call. With the House hanging by a thread, it is clearly in the interest of Republicans in Congress to avoid this crisis,” former House GOP leadership aide told the Hill.
Mere weeks ago, Trump was “bashing the ACA subsidies as a boondoggle enriching insurance companies at the taxpayers’ expense” reports the Hill.
Read the Hill report at this link.
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