Capitol agenda: Johnson’s turn to deliver a health plan
Get ready for the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to lapse.
All signs are pointing in that direction as President Donald Trump refuses to endorse an extension and Senate Republicans coalesce behind a plan from Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that would end the Obamacare tax credits and instead expand government-funded health savings accounts.
Now House Republicans are racing to prepare their own health care framework to vote on next week before leaving for the holidays — one that also likely would not extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies, which were supercharged as part of the Democrats’ 2021 pandemic relief package.
Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise will brief their conference Wednesday morning on all the options for this framework, which Scalise and relevant committee chairs helped craft.
“It won’t just be concepts we’re talking about ... It’ll be very specific things that are available in bill format,” Scalise told reporters Tuesday, noting some provisions will reflect proposals that ultimately did not make it into the final GOP megabill over the summer. He said each piece will be presented individually “to see where the consensus is and let members decide.”
— Moderates sound the alarm: Many rank-and-file Republicans are still pushing for an extension, worried about voter backlash over the ensuing skyrocketing premiums. Even some Trump aides have advised that an extension would be politically prudent.
“We can agree that the current construct is flawed, but that letting them expire is not acceptable,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said in an interview Tuesday. “That doesn’t work.”
Fitzpatrick and Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) have been proposing their own blueprints that would include extensions. But neither has earned approval from GOP leaders, who are under pressure from conservatives who say the tax credits are rife with fraud and abuse.
Scalise didn’t rule out an extension Tuesday. Still, he said, “at the end of the day, we’ve got to do what the consensus of our members want to do.”
— Don't rule out the discharge petition: While Republicans might not currently have the support in their conference to pass an extension, the Fitzpatrick and Kiggans plans have bipartisan backing. Fitzpatrick told POLITICO last week he believes he has 218 votes for his bill and didn’t rule out filing a discharge petition to circumvent leadership and force a vote.
Some House Republicans told POLITICO Tuesday they were even more inclined to back a discharge petition after Trump’s recent comments refusing to endorse an extension. That includes Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who told reporters Tuesday he would support a discharge petition for either the Fitzpatrick or Kiggans proposal, if there were no other options.
“I respect the speaker tremendously, but I disagree with them on this,” Van Drew said. “We just can’t listen to a handful of people.”
— Eyes on the White House: The Trump administration has yet to provide clear guidance on what they want Congress to pass. But Tuesday night, POLITICO saw James Braid and James Blair — the White House director of legislative affairs and deputy chief of staff, respectively — head into a meeting with House GOP leaders and committee chairs.
What else we’re watching:
— Dems blast Senate GOP health plan: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will host a news conference on health insurance premiums at 10:15 a.m. It comes a day after he criticized Senate Republicans’ health plan as “dead on arrival.”
— House votes on NDAA: The House is scheduled to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday afternoon as a group of hard-liners weigh whether to hold up the bill over complaints it would give aid to Ukraine and wouldn’t include a central banking digital currency ban. The big question is whether Republicans will be able to adopt the procedural rule governing floor debate on the NDAA.
Meredith Lee Hill and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
