Four Republican members of the House of Representatives forced their party’s leadership to join Democrats in voting on a bill to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which is set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress acts to renew them.
The surprise breakdown of the row within the GOP comes after a heated debate within the party over what to do about health care, as more than 20 million Americans face skyrocketing premiums if subsidies are allowed to expire.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this week that those talks ended without enough progress to vote on the subsidy extension. That announcement eventually led four Republicans to sign a discharge petition created by Democrats, giving that petition the 218 votes needed to force a vote on a Democratic proposal to extend the subsidies for three years.
“Doing nothing is not the answer,” GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York told reporters after signing the petition Wednesday. “I’m not here to be a pot plant. I’m here to do stuff to help my constituents.”
Despite the success of the petition, the fate of the grant is still very uncertain. The House will eventually vote on extending them, but it’s possible the vote could fail if even a single signatory can be convinced to oppose it. If the bill passes the House, it still needs to be approved by the Senate, where a similar Democratic proposal was rejected in a party-line vote last week.
What happens next?
Under official House procedures, a successful discharge petition is subject to a “layover” period, meaning Johnson doesn’t need to allow a vote until Congress reconvenes early next year — after the subsidies have run out. However, Johnson could choose to vote at any time. Democrats pressed him on Wednesday to allow the vote to happen immediately, arguing that there was no reason to let the subsidies expire in arcane legislative rules.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who launched the discharge petition in November, said on the House floor Wednesday, “under no circumstances should we leave this capital this week before voting on an extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credit bill that we know will pass.”
Johnson has given no indication that he will give in to pressure and allow a vote before being formally bound. If he is determined, the earliest a vote could happen is in early January after the House reconvenes after the holiday break.
Most House members signed the petition, suggesting that the subsidy extension has a strong chance of passing when it finally reaches the floor. The proposal’s prospects in the Senate are dim at best.
Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune was noncommittal Wednesday when asked whether he would allow a vote on subsidies if the House bill ultimately passes.
“We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he told reporters.
The Senate has already considered — and rejected — Democrats’ proposal. Thune last week allowed a vote on a three-year extension of the subsidy, fulfilling a promise he made last month as part of a deal to end the government shutdown. A majority of senators voted in favor of the bill, but it fell short of the 60-vote threshold needed to clear a filibuster. Any future votes on subsidies also need 60 votes to pass.
Whatever happens with that particular plan, the success of the discharge petition could prove to be a turning point for negotiations around alternative proposals to save subsidies. A group of moderate members of Congress discussed behind closed doors Wednesday how they could use the petition as a vehicle to pass a compromise bill that would extend subsidies, but make them less generous by adding new income limits or minimum out-of-pocket costs.
“I think it’s important that the House and the Senate figure out that we can avoid this cliff,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said Wednesday. “And expansion is what we’re doing.”
Barring an unexpected vote in the House before the legislative year ends on Thursday, those talks will continue over the holiday break and the future of the Affordable Care Act will remain in limbo until Congress returns to Capitol Hill early next month.
