(The Center Square) – Hours before the U.S. House will vote on Republicans’ health care plan, Democrats secured enough signatures Wednesday on their discharge petition to force a vote on a three-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
Four Republicans – Pennsylvania Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan, and Ryan Mackenzie, and Rep. Mike Lawler from New York – helped fulfill the 218 signatures needed to bring Democrats’ bill to the floor.
Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., urged House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote immediately.
“We are ready to vote, Mr. Speaker. You have the power to bring that to the floor today,” Clark said Wednesday. “Let’s stop the premium hikes, extend the ACA tax credits, and get back to building a health care system that is worthy of the American people.”
Johnson, however, will likely push a vote on the legislation to January, when the enhanced Obamacare Premium Tax Credit will have reverted to its pre-pandemic version. The expiration of the enhanced subsidies will partially contribute to millions of Americans’ health insurance premiums rising in 2026.
Even if Democrats’ bill passes the House, it is unlikely to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate. Republicans in the upper chamber just last week tanked a bill to extend the subsidies.
Republican leaders argue that extending the enhanced PTC merely patches up a broken system.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., noted how Obamacare premiums have risen 80% since the Affordable Care Act was passed, calling the program “unaffordable and unsustainable.”
He also pointed out that Democrats were the ones who set the expiration date for the enhanced subsidies in question.
“Democrats funded temporary band aids to cover up unaffordable care, they set the expiration dates, and they chose to fund liberal priorities instead of making them permanent,” Guthrie told lawmakers Wednesday.
Guthrie and House Republicans are positing their Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act – which will likely pass the lower chamber Wednesday but will also fail in the Senate – as a better alternative.
“The Congressional Budget Office estimates the Republican plan before us will lower premiums by 11%, compared to just 5% from continuing the Democrats’ subsidies,” Guthrie said. “These policies will also lower health care costs for all Americans, not just the roughly 7% percent of Americans enrolled in Obamacare.”
Lawler, one of the Republicans who signed Democrats’ petition, said his decision “is not an endorsement of the bill written,” but that Republican leaders’ refusal to consider any sort of bipartisan compromise bill forced him to take action.
“I continue to believe any [subsidy] extension should be targeted, fiscally responsible, and include income eligibility limits and safeguards against fraud, similar to the bipartisan discussions underway in the Senate,” Lawler posted on X “But when leadership blocks action entirely, Congress has a responsibility to act.”
