Speaker to Allow January Vote on Democrats’ Health Care Bill (1)

A Democratic-led bill that would extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years is set for a House vote in early January, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Bloomberg Government Wednesday.

Johnson’s move came after four moderate Republicans helped force the vote by signing onto a Democratic discharge petition, which allows for a vote on any legislation that gets 218 signatures. Democrats had hoped to get a vote on the bill today, but under House rules it can be delayed into early January.

The House is in session for just three more days before the end of the year, when the subsidies expire. Johnson noted that House rules don’t require him to schedule a vote on the legislation until after seven legislative days, which would be in January.

“I wouldn’t and couldn’t block it,” Johnson said of the discharge petition. GOP leadership blocked a different successful discharge petition by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) earlier this year through language in a procedural rule.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) slammed Johnson for refusing to schedule a vote on the bill this week.

“Unfortunately, the speaker is the obstacle to preventing this bipartisan health care bill from receiving a vote before we recess” for the year, Jeffries told reporters.

Johnson opposes an extension to the ACA enhanced tax credits and huddled on the floor with moderates who signed Democrats’ discharge petition Wednesday. If moderates strike a deal with the speaker, they could withdraw their support for the three-year clean extension when it comes to the floor for a vote. Centrist Republicans previously proposed shorter-term subsidy extensions with guardrails.

“I have been constantly” in conversation with moderates, Johnson said Wednesday afternoon. “We’re still working on it.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who on Wednesday morning became the first moderate Republican to sign Jeffries’ discharge petition, said tonight that he hasn’t been in conversations with GOP leadership since signing. Asked whether he may abandon the Jeffries discharge petition in exchange for a vote on a narrower ACA subsidy bill he previously proposed, Fitzpatrick said “that ship has sailed already.”

Fitzpatrick and other moderates met with senators Wednesday afternoon to discuss a path forward on health care after the discharge petition reached 218 signatures. Senate Republicans blocked a three-year extension of the tax credits last week.

The Pennsylvania Republican gamed out a path for the subsidies to become law: he said a House-passed three-year extension would give senators a vehicle to amend into a compromise ACA subsidy extension bill that can get 60 votes.

If the Senate-amended version passes, Fitzpatrick said he would be open to another discharge petition to bring the bill up in the House. “I would suspect that that’s going to happen on its own,” Fitzpatrick said of House leaders putting an ACA subsidy amendment on the floor, noting that a Senate vote would pressure leaders.

Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) didn’t say Wednesday if there would be a vote in the Senate after the discharge petition got the 218 necessary signatures for House action. “We obviously will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is trying to work with a bipartisan group of senators to find a path forward on the tax credits, said “the House discharge petition certainly is a boost.”