Congress

15 years into Obamacare, the GOP health care message is as muddled as ever

Published

7 months ago

December 15, 2025

With key Obamacare tax credits set to expire within weeks, Democrats have unified behind a simple message: extend the subsidies and keep health insurance premiums from spiking for more than 20 million Americans.

Republicans, meanwhile, have engaged in a wide-ranging blame game while scrambling to coalesce behind an easily digestible plan to lower health care costs. That struggle comes to a head this week as House leaders move to put what they hope will be a consensus GOP plan up for a vote.

House Republican leaders chose a narrow set of proposals to include in that plan, arguing they lacked broad agreement for a more comprehensive undertaking as they seek to satisfy competing GOP factions, including vulnerable Republicans who’ve argued they will lose their seats if the Affordable Care Act subsidies aren’t extended.

The upshot is that there is no clear, unified GOP message on health care going into the year-end deadline when the tax credits expire — and no guarantee that Republicans will be able to pass anything this week to address the loss of beefed-up subsidies instituted under former President Joe Biden.

“I expect people are going to have an opportunity to vote their conscience and then go defend their votes back home like we always do,” House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) told reporters about the GOP’s health care strategy.

Across the Capitol, there are already clear signs of unease. While Senate Republicans mostly united behind a plan that would expand health savings accounts as an alternative, four GOP senators crossed party lines to advance a Democratic proposal that would simply extend the Obamacare subsidies for three years.

Now rank-and-file Republicans in both chambers are privately strategizing about how to pull off an unlikely 11th-hour deal to avert a health care price shock that has triggered significant anxiety throughout the party about the political blowback they could face in the 2026 midterms. House GOP moderates negotiated an amendment vote that could tack a subsidy extension onto the leadership-backed health bill, but that vote is expected to fail and only serve as political cover for the vulnerable House Republicans.

That’s because top GOP leaders have resisted scrambling a 15-year-old message their party has been loath to abandon: Obamacare is a costly disaster, and Americans need better options.

“There’s a couple of [issues] that split our conference — that’s one of them,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said last week.

The dissonance within the GOP ranks comes as Democrats remain confident their push to preserve the status quo will resonate with voters — especially after making it a central focus of the shutdown fight that ended last month.

Party leaders have managed to keep Democrats largely unified behind a three-year extension of the expiring subsidies. Every Senate Democrat voted to advance that proposal Thursday. In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has managed so far to keep the vast majority of his members from endorsing compromise extension proposals that purple-district Republicans have introduced.

“Our message is simple: Republicans have created a health care crisis for American families who are seeing their health insurance rise by 100 to 300 percent, and the solution has been in front of us for a while,” said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), chair of the centrist New Democrats.

President Donald Trump, the GOP’s master of viral messaging, has not been especially helpful when it comes to health care. Trump has repeatedly referred to Obamacare as a “disaster” and railed against insurance companies who collect the federal subsidies — echoing a favorite conservative talking point.

But he has yet to lay out a specific alternative beyond giving “money to the people” directly to buy health care. Trump gave a nod to the issue during the annual Congressional Ball at the White House Thursday, addressing “Democrats” in the room: “We’re going to start working together on health care. I really predict that.”

While some of the Republicans present took the comments to mean Trump might be open to striking a so-far elusive health care deal in January, many Democrats doubt he will be willing to come to the table and extend a framework he has railed against for a decade. Moreover, the party is preparing to use the issue — and Trump’s refusal to engage — to hammer Republicans in the midterms as they show vulnerability on cost-of-living concerns.

“He doesn’t understand the hell that people are going through as they prepare to pay these hugely high health care costs,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a member of Senate Democratic leadership.

On Capitol Hill this week, familiar divides are likely to play out as Republicans come to terms with the impending expiration of the subsidies, which will mean a much smaller swath of Americans will be eligible for tax credits. The Congressional Budget Office projects millions will choose to drop their coverage rather than pay higher premiums.

Already concerns about political blowback forced House GOP leaders to backtrack from their initial strategy of simply allowing the Obamacare subsidies to expire. As part of their efforts to pass a package of measures meant to erode insurance regulations enacted in the ACA, “the process will allow” for an amendment vote on extending the subsidies, a Republican leadership aide said Friday.

But that has rankled conservatives who have publicly criticized those Republicans who are supporting an extension, and top party leaders do not expect the amendment will be adopted.

“My Democratic colleagues broke health care, and now they are down here saying we must give more money to insurance companies,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said Friday on the House floor, “and any Republican who goes along with that needs to answer for doing the same thing.”

Republicans have health care plans, he added, but “what we don’t have is the backbone and the will power to stand up and deliver.”

Scores of Roy’s colleagues, however, have taken a more nuanced view — that even though they share concerns about the cost of the subsidies and the legacy of Obamacare, they are frustrated their party appears to be confronting the issue only at the last minute with family budgets at stake for thousands of their constituents.

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said last week he wasn’t completely happy with the situation and that Republicans “need to move this along.”

“A lot of people are receiving this health care — they don’t need the rug pulled out from under them,” Meuser said. “Definitely should have been done a ways back, we could say, because of the shutdown. But we’ve got to do everything we can and then do more. “I don’t see how we just leave things in limbo,” he added.

Congress

Rubio, Witkoff to brief Congress on Iran

Published

2 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Top deputies of President Donald Trump will brief Congress on the Iran peace talks in a Monday conference call — the first time administration officials have addressed a broad group of lawmakers since Trump signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Tehran earlier this month.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, will lead the briefing for all House and Senate members at 4 p.m., according to seven people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

Republicans and Democrats have called for more transparency about the 14-point agreement inked on June 18, which initiated a cease-fire between the two countries. Since then, the U.S. and Iran have continued to engage in hostilities.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Red, white and GOP hard-liner blues

Published

5 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans finally cleared a runway this week to finish some of their top legislative priorities before the July 4 recess.

That is, unless a small band of hard-liners trip up those plans at takeoff.

Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to move quickly to pass fiscal 2027 appropriations legislation, the annual defense policy bill and a kids online safety bill that has been years in the making. The movement comes after President Donald Trump instructed GOP hard-liners to stop holding up a procedural vote amid a protest from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and others that the Senate hadn’t passed Trump’s election security bill.

But Luna and other hard-liners are still threatening to tank the procedural vote that could delay the defense policy bill and other measures until they get concessions on the SAVE America Act, amid other demands.

Johnson, for example, had also promised hard-liners a vote before July 4 on a sweeping GOP immigration bill introduced in the prior Congress as H.R. 2, which is highly unlikely to happen.

Johnson for his part has said the House will “pass the SAVE America Act again” by folding parts of it into a third party-line reconciliation bill. But the slimmed-down version he’d need to pursue in order to meet strict Senate rules for the budget process is already being panned by hard-liners as insufficient.

That reconciliation bill is also already delayed. House Republicans aren’t on track to meet their goal of advancing its framework before the July 4 recess as members on the Budget panel balked over how to pay for the legislation in a closed-door meeting last week.

“Time is of the essence, given how many legislative days we have,” House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie, who is sponsoring the kids online safety legislation, said in an interview last week. “If we lose a week, that would be important.”

Meanwhile, Democratic leadership is grappling with their own heated internal divisions this week. Members are split over supporting the adoption of an amendment to a fiscal 2027 spending bill from Rep. Thomas Massie that would end Israel aid and cut the overall foreign military aid program by $3.3 billion.

Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro did not instruct her colleagues on how to vote during a rare Sunday evening caucus call, two sources granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting tell Mia and Riley. Leaders did, however, criticize the amendment as poorly written.

One other item this week that could split members of each party: House lawmakers are also slated to vote on a rewritten war powers resolution from Rep. Rashida Tlaib to reign in Trump administration military actions in Lebanon. Leadership worked with Tlaib to come up with new language last month that is expected to garner more Dem support, but the resolution is still expected to fail without GOP votes.

What else we’re watching:

— SENATE GOP GETS ANTSY ABOUT NOMINATIONS: Some Republican senators are unsettled by Trump’s apparent lack of urgency in filling vacant posts, even as GOP control of the chamber beyond the midterms is increasingly in doubt. There are more than two dozen federal court vacancies. Labor secretary, FDA commissioner and scores of other open positions do not have nominees, and a senior White House official said Trump is in no rush to fill them. “We’re running short on time,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a member of Senate HELP, which oversees health, labor and other issues.

—RICK SCOTT SAYS HE’S JUST TRYING TO HELP: Fresh off his controversial Trump invite to a Senate GOP lunch last week, Sen. Rick Scott told Blue Light News in an interview he’s trying to make a mark — not trying to challenge Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Scott insists that neither his invitation to the president nor a letter he circulated afterward outlining how the Senate GOP should be preparing for the midterms should be seen as a prelude to a leadership challenge. The Florida Republican said he’s perfectly happy running the conference’s conservative Steering Committee and predicted Thune would easily secure another term as leader. What has become eminently clear in recent weeks is that Scott — after a long career in business, two terms as governor and nearly eight years as senator — just isn’t a back-bench kind of guy.

Meredith Lee Hill, Riley Rogerson, Alex Gangitano, Jordain Carney and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.

Congress

Republicans get antsy about confirmations as the Senate hangs in the balance

Published

8 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is showing little urgency in sending nominations to the Senate even as the GOP’s control of the chamber beyond 2026 is increasingly in doubt.

There are more than two dozen federal court vacancies. Labor secretary, FDA commissioner and scores of other open positions do not have nominees, and a senior White House official said Trump is in no rush to fill them.

“Ultimately, we need to have the right people in those positions,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to describe internal thinking. “So if it’s acting for now, so be it. If [it] takes a little while to find that perfect person, then it takes a little while.”

That’s unsettling some Republican senators who are anxious to fill spots ahead of the midterms, a daunting task given the legislative calendar and host of competing GOP priorities.

“We’re running short on time,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a member of the Senate HELP Committee, which oversees health, labor and other issues. “We’d love to get at least one or two of them and get it in the next tranche.”

As far as judges, Tuberville said he wants to see “as many as we can get” nominated, adding, “I don’t know why we don’t have more.”

Trump’s apparent nonchalance — particularly over judges — is a marked departure from his first term, when he opined that appointing people to the bench might be the “single most important thing you do” as president. But as the Senate left for a two-week recess Thursday, there were only 10 nominees pending for 29 judicial vacancies.

The vacancies come amid ongoing tensions between the Senate and Trump, who has put pressure on the chamber to pass the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act, going so far as to cancel a planned Wednesday signing of a bipartisan housing bill.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he “absolutely” wants to see the president nominate more judges before the end of the year. Texas has three court vacancies with zero nominees.

“And that’s one of his greatest legacies, both first term and second,” Cruz said of Trump.

Trump is on pace with his first term in total confirmations in part because Republicans changed the Senate rules last year to confirm slates of civilian posts at once by a simple majority vote.

One tranche confirmed in Mayincluded 49 nominees, from ambassadors to midlevel posts at various federal agencies. So far, 502 of Trump’s second-term nominees have been confirmed, compared to 509 at this point during his first term and 601 at the same point during former President Joe Biden’s term.

Federal judges and members of the Cabinet still have to be confirmed individually, despite the rule change for other posts.

Trump inherited only about 40 judicial vacancies for his current term, fewer than any president since Ronald Reagan. Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) previously complained that the White House hasn’t nominated more judges. More recently, though, he’s blaming his committee for not acting more quickly on the already pending nominees.

“Right now it’s hard for me to blame the White House when in the last three executive weeks, we were supposed to have meetings to vote judges out, we couldn’t have enough members present,” Grassley said in an interview.

A White House official said “Trump plans to nominate well qualified individuals to fill these vacancies.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said he’s had “a couple good discussions” with the White House about a circuit court vacancy, which he expects the administration to fill. As a Judiciary Committee member, he can block any nominee that doesn’t get support from Democrats.

“If it’s somebody I support, I’ll vote for them. If it’s somebody I don’t support, I’ll vote no,” Kennedy said. “It’s an important spot. They know I’m on Judiciary, and they know I’ll vote no if I don’t agree.”

The Labor secretary and FDA commissioner picks, meanwhile, go through the HELP committee — chaired by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who lost his primary last month after Trump endorsed a challenger.

Republicans have been left in the dark about those nominees, some on the panel say.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said he’s heard “nothing at all” and “radio silence” from administration. Another GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they’ve heard nothing from the administration about its thinking or plans for a Labor secretary nominee specifically.

The HELP Committee membership poses challenges for the administration. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) previously expressed concerns about Casey Means’ nomination as surgeon general before Trump pulled her, for example. And the dynamic between the president and the chair could be a hurdle, three people granted anonymity to comment on the process said.

“Why give Cassidy a platform to get back at DJT?” one of them said.

Another, a GOP senator, predicted Cassidy would “play games” with nominees who have to go through his committee.

“I really don’t think a lot of senators are in any mood to give the president any wins because they’re frustrated with him,” said the third person, who is close to the White House.

But confirming nominees before he leaves the Senate could be a priority for Cassidy, one of the few Republican doctors to push the administration toward public health nominees who align with established science on issues like vaccines.

A potential successor — Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — is a critic of the vaccine and masking standards set during the pandemic and would likely set the committee on a different path.

Recent appointees such as Nicole Saphier for surgeon general and Erica Schwartz for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director are more mainstream than some past HHS appointees like Means and Dave Weldon, who was nominated for CDC director before the administration determined he didn’t have the votes.

Those nominees have been moving through the regular process, including meeting with Cassidy and other senators ahead of confirmation hearings.

Cassidy told reporters after he lost his primary that he would “vote for the good of my country and the good of my state.”

“There’s some nominees that have not gotten through committee for whatever reason, so that’s not anything new,” he added. “That’ll just be part of the process.”

A HELP Committee spokesperson added Thursday that Cassidy has voted for every Trump nominee and that the panel will “do its job to confirm qualified nominees and serve the American people.”

“Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” the spokesperson added.

The White House official said “Trump remains committed to nominating highly qualified individuals for a variety of posts that are aligned with the agenda the American people elected him to enact” and will continue to send nominees to the Senate, including to the HELP Committee.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview he had not spoken to the White House about their plans for some of the major picks under HELP jurisdiction but he encouraged the administration to send nominees.

“I think it’s always better to have people in permanent positions rather than temporary,” Thune added.

Megan Messerly contributed to this report.