By Mary Alice Miller
“A bipartisan discharge petition has secured the 218 signatures necessary to force an up or down vote on a straightforward three-year extension of the Affordable Health Care tax credits,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Mike Johnson needs to bring this bill to the floor immediately so we can prevent tens of millions of Americans from experiencing dramatically increased health insurance premiums at the end of this month. House Democrats are in this fight until we win this fight and save healthcare.”
Four Republicans frustrated with House leadership joined Democrats to secure the discharge petition.
“The only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.). “Unfortunately, it is House leadership itself that has forced this outcome.”
Jeffries unapologetically pushed for the discharge petition that would bypass House Republican leadership in order to bring to the floor for a vote a clean bill that would extend ACA subsidies without any reforms for three years.
That discharge petition, similar to the one that required the release of the Epstein files, required 218 signatures.
Obtaining the requisite signatures does not automatically lead to a vote.
Under House rules, a discharge petition cannot be acted upon for at least seven legislative days, after which House GOP leaders must bring the subsidy extension to a vote within two days. At this point, the earliest opportunity to vote on Jeffries’ petition is in the new year after the House comes back from holiday break.
The main deadline for ObamaCare Open Enrollment was December 15 to secure coverage for January 1, 2026. New York’s deadline is January 31, 2026.
If that date is missed, a Qualifying Life Event (like moving, marriage, divorce, pregnancy, birth, becoming a citizen, or losing other coverage) must occur in order to enroll via a Special Enrollment Period.
Democrats have consistently advocated for the extension of ObamaCare subsidies. Senate Republicans promised to vote on the Affordable Care Act as a condition to reopen the government after more than a month of the longest federal government shutdown in American history.
Last week the Senate failed to advance bills to address the looming increase in health care coverage.
A Senate Democrat proposal to extend ACA subsidies for three years was joined by four Republicans but failed to pass.
A separate Senate Republican plan would have offered up to $1,500 a year in health savings accounts for Americans earning less than 700% of the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level is set at $15,650 for a single person, and increasing for each additional household member.
The Senate Republican bill would not have extended ACA tax credits, and the money could not be used to pay for health care premiums.
Neither proposal met the 60-vote Senate threshold.
“The Republican plan is a when you get sick, you go broke plan, plain and simple,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
House Republicans then released proposed legislation that would not extend Affordable Care Act tax subsidies. Instead, they proposed legislation that would allow small businesses to join together to purchase health insurance plans for their employees and establish new requirements for pharmacy benefit managers that would encourage decreases in prescription drug costs.
In addition, starting in 2027, federal cost-sharing reduction payments would aim to lower premiums for some low-income Americans. It is unclear why Republicans are pushing cost-sharing reduction payments because federal courts have ruled them illegal, because the ACA does not appropriate funding for them.
Health care plans that provide abortion coverage would be excluded.
House Republicans passed this partisan package of policies as a conservative alternative to extending ObamaCare subsidies, which does not address the upcoming increase in ACA premiums.
Enhanced subsidies were enacted during COVID in 2021 to make ACA marketplace health care plans more affordable. That marketplace came out of health care reform that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. Since then, Trump and federal elected Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but during the subsequent years none have put forward a credible plan.
Ultra-conservative Republicans fiercely oppose extension of expiring subsidies, but more moderate Republicans see the writing on the wall: failure to extend ACA subsidies could cost them control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.
Conservatives seem unconcerned. They state that ACA subsidies apply to 7% of the population, but that represents 22 million people.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, filed a discharge petition in an attempt to bypass House leadership and force a vote on a bill to extend the subsidies for two years with new income limits and measures to address fraud.
“This is personal to a lot of us. These are our friends and our neighbors who are losing sleep over this,” Fitzpatrick said. “So we just have no time, no patience, for the BS politics that sometimes consumes this place. This is real life.”
A number House Democrats would need to sign that petition in order to force the vote. But House Democrats stood united behind Jeffries’ petition.
“Republicans are continuing to bury their heads in the sand, completely and totally uninterested in finding common ground to make life better for the American people in this instance by extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” said Jeffries. “House Democrats remain ready, willing, and able to sit down with our Republican colleagues anytime, any place, and anywhere in order to enact a bipartisan agreement that protects the health care of tens of millions of Americans, to fix our broken health care system, and to deal with the Republican health care crisis decisively, which is crushing the American people.”
He added, “We’re all hands on deck to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, but Mike Johnson hasn’t reached out to us as Democrats to have a conversation about finding a path forward, which suggests to me that Mike Johnson is not serious about protecting the healthcare of the American people. They could find $40 billion to bail out their right-wing dictator friend in Argentina.”
“These Republicans made those massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors permanent,” said Jeffries. “And we’ve said from the very beginning, we just want to make sure that everyday Americans, middle class Americans, working-class Americans have a similar level of certainty. That’s not too much to ask for in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.”
