The House passed a sweeping healthcare bill on Wednesday, a vote that largely split along party lines, as Democrats and some Republicans expressed concern that the legislation allows enhanced Obamacare subsidies to expire at the end of the year.
House lawmakers voted 216-211 to pass the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act. All Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), voted against the legislation, which comprises three bills that have previously passed the House but have never been signed into law.
The measure will mostly serve as a messaging bill for Republicans and is not expected to become law, largely due to Democrats’ preference for a simple extension to the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Given that Congress’s legislative session ends Friday, and the enhanced tax credits expire on Dec. 31, lawmakers will leave Washington without finding a compromise to prevent higher premiums for millions of consumers.
Despite Republicans voting nearly unanimously on the bill, many centrist GOP lawmakers are frustrated with their own leadership because the legislation did not include any language addressing the ACA subsidies. As a result, four Republicans decided to sign on to Democratic legislation that forces the House to vote on a three-year blanket extension on Wednesday morning, effectively circumventing Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and teeing up a separate vote for next year.
Among the Republican detractors who signed the Democrats’ measure, known as a discharge petition, was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who had a separate petition to extend the subsidies for two years with fraud reform provisions. He told reporters that there have been no discussions among offering an amendment to his bill that would also “turn off” the Democrats’ three-year extension petition.
“The ship has sailed on that,” Fitzpatrick said. “Nobody’s presented anything to me like that. I don’t even know that’s possible. So if there have been conversations about that, that’s news to me.”
“But we’ve been having these conversations for months, so today was the deadline, and they missed it,” Fitzpatrick added, referring to GOP leaders.
Fitzpatrick said he thinks that the time for negotiating with leadership is likely over.
“We’ve been negotiating for weeks, and we just kept getting told no,” the Pennsylvania congressman added. “The only thing they said yes to is dropping a poison pill in our bill, which would have failed miserably on the floor. We’re not interested in the show vote. We’re interested in actually advancing policy that’s going to help people. They did not want a bill coming to the floor that could pass. That’s the bottom line. And I think that’s obvious to everybody.”
Johnson told Bloomberg Government that he “wouldn’t and couldn’t” block a vote on Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-NY) bill. He confirmed a vote will happen in January, as the petition needs seven legislative days to “ripen” before a vote can take place.
The act of defiance from Republicans was a win for Jeffries, who refused to budge on a simple extension. He purposely did not endorse two bipartisan measures, one led by a member of his own caucus, that would have imposed new requirements on the Obamacare subsidies.
The move also undermined Republican unity on healthcare, set to be a marquee issue in the midterm elections. However, Johnson told reporters after the Democrats’ petition reached the required 218 signatures that he did not see it as a sign that he was “losing control” over the House.
Still, the speaker has faced repeated attempts to undermine his leadership from GOP members on both his centrist and right flanks. While conservative Republicans in the Freedom Caucus and their like-minded allies are typically the thorns in Johnson’s side, swing-district members were at the center of disagreements for the last few weeks as they failed to secure a GOP-led vote on the subsidies.
House members are now eager for a vote on the subsidies before the holidays, now that the petition has garnered the support of 218 lawmakers. Jeffries told reporters ahead of the GOP healthcare bill vote that Johnson needs to bring the bill to the floor “today” or before the House departs on Friday.
“Unfortunately, the speaker is the obstacle to preventing this bipartisan healthcare bill from receiving a vote before we recess,” Jeffries said.
Fitzpatrick also said he believes the bill should be brought to the floor, though he understands that Johnson is impeded by the procedure surrounding discharge petitions. However, because the bill now has adequate bipartisan support, he believes the speaker should allow it to receive a vote before lawmakers leave for the rest of the year.
“I think it should be brought up as soon as possible,” the congressman said. “There’s no reason not to.”
REPUBLICAN REBELS HAND JEFFRIES BIG WIN BY FORCING VOTE ON OBAMACARE EXTENSIONS
When asked if the speaker handled the situation surrounding healthcare proposals properly, Fitzpatrick said, “That’s a better question for him.”
But, he said, “Here we are with a clean extension now. … I do know they wouldn’t put our bill on the floor as is. They asked us to go the amendment route. We went the amendment route, and they shut them down.”
