Rank-and-File Members Push for Health Deal as Leadership Digs In

Rank-and-file House members from both parties are growing impatient as the year’s end approaches, and neither party’s leaders are budging on health care.

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and bipartisan lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a framework to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits by a year with “modifications,” and then pass legislation early next year to address 2027 health policy.

Shortly after, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said a yearlong subsidy extension is “not the direction that we’ve been focusing on.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) then announced Democrats will use their promised floor time on health care to vote on a three-year clean extension that has virtually no chance of GOP support.

“Our leaderships — neither Democrat nor Republican — have put forth a plan that can earn 60 votes in the Senate, so we’re working together across the aisle,” said Rep. Nick LaLota (D-N.Y.), part of the bipartisan group that supports a one-year extension.

The framework proposed by Kiggans and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) has bipartisan support, with more than 30 members signing on, including a handful of Republicans.

Their proposal is just one in a flurry released over the past few weeks as members press for an extension of the premium tax credits in the face of opposition from a broad swath of Republicans. Multiple lawmakers, including Reps. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), have signed onto multiple efforts as they seek any solution to avoid a jump in premiums for Americans who rely on the credits.

“I’ll consider any one of these options,” Suozzi said. “Anything: I’ll consider one year, two year, three year, income caps at this level, at that level, at that level, fraud protections — all the different things that people are proposing.” He and his Problem Solvers Caucus co-chair, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), have a separate proposal in the works that could drop as soon as Thursday.

Members are growing frustrated with leaders’ reluctance to find any agreement on the issue. The enhanced premium tax credits are especially unpopular among House Republicans, giving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) little incentive to anger his volatile right flank by putting an extension on the floor.

Johnson said Republicans are working on their own health care bill, though it’s near certain it won’t include any extension of the enhanced premium tax credits. “The Democrats broke American health care,” the speaker told reporters Thursday, railing against the Affordable Care Act.

“Their answer is to subsidize it, to take more taxpayer dollars and dump it onto a broken system, to subsidize insurance companies so the prices continue to go up for everyone,” he added. “That is not the solution.”

The Senate also looks increasingly unlikely to send over a bipartisan extension. Senators will vote on Democrats’ three-year clean extension next Thursday, the same proposal House Democratic leaders have trumpeted.

“That’s not a serious proposal by Chuck Schumer, and he knows that,” said Hurd, one of the Republicans who supports a shorter extension with guardrails.