A bipartisan group of House lawmakers launched a last-minute bid Wednesday to force a vote on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
The effort, known as a discharge petition, faces long-shot odds: At least 218 members of the House would first have to agree to consider the legislation, including most House Democrats. If it succeeds in the House, it would still need to get at least 13 Republican votes in the Senate — if all of the chamber’s Democrats supported it.
But the attempt may still present the best chance remaining for lawmakers to push through an extension for the enhanced ACA tax credits that expire at the end of the year, increasing health insurance costs for most of the 24 million Americans who get coverage from the Obamacare marketplace.
Most Republicans oppose extending the credits, which were put in place by Democrats during the covid-19 pandemic. The GOP argues that the subsidies are outdated, push up the price of health care and are vulnerable to fraud. Democrats have argued the credits are key to keeping health care affordable for people on the ACA marketplace, and they had insisted on an extension through the government shutdown last month. The party is now pushing legislation to extend the credits for three years without any other changes, but that’s expected to fail in a Senate vote Thursday.
The plan proposed Wednesday by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) would extend the tax credits for two years, add new income caps and implement minimum monthly premiums for marketplace plans eligible for the tax credits.
House Republican leaders are not interested in advancing the measure, but the petition could give it a chance: Discharge petitions bypass the traditional lawmaking process and allow legislation to be considered on the floor without the speaker’s approval, if backed by a majority of the House.
“It’s a time-sensitive matter, and it’s an existential matter for people back home that we care about, where this is a very real problem,” Fitzpatrick told reporters after introducing the petition, adding that the group tried to push the bill through traditional avenues. “All those remedies are exhausted, then you got to go this route, unfortunately.”
Republicans in both chambers have been working to come up with a counterproposal to the Democrats’ effort to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies. In the Senate, they will consider a GOP bill on Thursday that would allow the premium ACA subsidies to expire and replace them with a new two-year program funding health savings accounts paired with certain plans on the ACA marketplace. That proposal lacks Democratic support and is expected to fail because of the Senate filibuster.
House Republicans met Wednesday morning to discuss possible options and emerged with a laundry list of ideas — which did not include an extension of the premium ACA tax credits, infuriating moderates who have made the demand of leadership.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said he hopes to propose a GOP plan by the end of the week that could be voted on next week, but it remained unclear to lawmakers whether the divided factions could agree on compromise legislation. There also may not be time to finish passing an extension before current subsidies expire the end of the year, regardless, as lawmakers are set to head home for a holiday break at the end of next week.
“We have some low-hanging fruit, we have some things that every Republican agrees to,” Johnson said Wednesday. “You’re going to see a package come together that will be on the floor next week that will actually reduce premiums for 100 percent of Americans who are on health insurance, not just the 7 percent,” referencing the share of Americans who receive the enhanced premium tax credits.
There are already enough Republicans who have signed on to Fitzpatricks’s petition for it to pass if all Democrats joined with them.
But House Democratic leadership is unlikely to push their caucus to join the petition. Leaders are concerned that some of the provisions in bill couldn’t be implemented in time and that one — the minimum monthly premium — could push about a million people off of insurance, according to a senior Democratic leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.
Democratic leaders prefer an alternative bipartisan ACA extension — a plan put forward by Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia) and Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) that was introduced Wednesday and has support from at least 38 bipartisan members — though it is unclear whether any of those lawmakers will introduce a discharge petition to consider it before the subsidies expire.
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