A battle is brewing in America’s legislature, and it’s set to look a whole lot like the last one. The fight over extending COVID-era Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits set to expire on December 31 has plagued Congress for months. It was a key point in the record-breaking federal government shutdown and remained unresolved. On Wednesday, December 18, the House GOP passed a health care bill that didn’t extend those Obamacare subsidies, then left for Christmas break the next day before a subsequent discharge petition by the Democrats could force a vote on the issue.
This could be seen by many as winning the war, but the victory – if, in fact, a victory it is – will almost certainly be short-lived. That shutdown mentioned before was what you might call foreshadowing; Congress must return in January and pass government funding or risk yet another shutdown – and Democrats are already gearing up to use those ACA subsidies as leverage once again.
A Pyrrhic Victory in the Obamacare Battle?
Wednesday’s legislative victory in the House was almost entirely along party lines, with just one Republican – Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky – siding with all the voting Democrats, though for polar opposite reasons. Another four Republicans, though, then joined forces with all the Democrats to submit a discharge petition to force a vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies in their exact current form for three years.
The party-line bill, titled the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, passed with the support of 216 Republicans against 210 Democrats and Massie. Three from each party, however, abstained from voting. Should all the Democrats support the discharge petition next month when Congress is back in session and is joined by just the four Republicans who signed on, they’ll have 217 votes in their favor. Losing those four votes means that even with Thomas Massie and the three who didn’t vote on the other bill – Gregory Murphy of North Carolina, Steve Womack of Arkansas, and Alabama’s Gary Palmer – the final vote will be 217-216, a close but clear loss for the GOP majority.
And that’s assuming no other Republicans defect or even refuse to vote. Given that the result is almost a foregone conclusion, some in less reliably Republican districts may feel it’s politically expedient to do so.
As a result, Senate Republicans aren’t happy, with at least a handful blaming Johnson for ruining any chance of cutting a compromise deal for either a shorter extension, a reduction of the tax credits, or both. When the two items inevitably come before the Senate in January – the House-passed health care bill and the almost certain to pass three-year extension – GOP senators will find themselves with burning hands in a political game of hot potato.
How can Senate Republicans pull 100% party compliance and seven Democrats to pass that bill without offering up enough GOP votes to pass the Obamacare subsidy extension in return?
When Winning the Battle Risks Losing the War
But a House-passed health care bill is the least of the Senate GOP’s concerns when it comes to extending Obamacare tax credits. Also up in January is the continuing resolution that’s keeping the federal government funded. Numerous Democrats in both chambers have made it clear they don’t see any bipartisan support on the table for whatever funding plan the Republican majorities come up with unless the Obamacare subsidy extension is passed first.
Republicans don’t need Democrats in the House, of course, but they do need at least seven of them in the Senate – and that’s assuming that every GOP senator toes that party line. Once more, America could be looking at an extended government shutdown over the ACA-enhanced tax credits.
But, of course, the fight doesn’t end here. 2026 is a midterm election year, and Democrats are betting on America laying more of the blame at the feet of Republicans. Even some Republicans seem resigned to this, including Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who told CNN on Sunday that the American people will have to decide whether they blame Republicans for the lapse in enhanced subsidies. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski suspects they will. “When people feel that they have counted on or waited for their Congress to act on an issue that they feel is a huge priority, and they see no action, there’s consequences to that,” she told CNN’s Manu Raju earlier last week. “As the party in charge, we have got a responsibility to figure it out, and so I do think that there are ramifications if we fail to act on this.”
If Republicans refuse to allow Obamacare subsidy enhancements from the pandemic to continue, it could cost them another shutdown or even the majority in the next Congress – and, of course, Americans in the marketplace will pay far higher premiums for their health care. If they extend the subsidies, though, it will cost the taxpayer billions more and themselves a considerable amount of trust with conservative voters.
They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t – and America may pay the price one way or another regardless of the outcome.
