Congress
Clock resets on Obamacare talks as Congress fails to act on subsidies
Hopes for a quick patch saving millions of Americans from sharply higher health insurance premiums have given way to expectations of a long slog on Capitol Hill.
It is now all but certain that enhanced Obamacare subsidies first implemented by Democrats as a Covid relief measure will expire Dec. 31 after the Senate voted down competing partisan health plans Thursday and House GOP leaders indicated they had no plans to bring an extension up for a vote this year.
Less certain is when lawmakers might begin to pick up the pieces — or if they have any hope of finding a solution. A bipartisan group of lawmakers continues to talk about a possible 11th-hour path forward, hoping that the failed votes this week can give them some badly needed momentum. But most of their colleagues are convinced the discussions won’t bear fruit until 2026.
A major obstacle is that leaders in both parties are, at least so far, prioritizing plans that don’t bridge existing political gaps. Top Republicans are putting forward proposals that would not extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, while Democrats are sticking to proposals that most in the GOP say they cannot accept.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who voted for both parties’ proposals Thursday. She said she was “talking to people of good will and good faith about how we might be able to sketch” out a compromise.
But Murkowski also said in a subsequent statement that Congress needs to reach an agreement by Jan. 15 — a concession talks are likely to slip into next year.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who has been involved in loose bipartisan health care discussions for months, said he hoped the failed votes would lead negotiators to “bridge the impasses.” But asked if there was any way to prevent the subsidies from lapsing, he said, “I honestly don’t know.”
The stakes for American families are considerable. Independent analysts say those who purchase insurance directly from the ACA exchanges could see their premiums spike by an average of about $1,000 a year. For some, it could be considerably more. The political stakes are also vast, with many moderate Republicans fretting that a lapse would threaten their reelection campaigns and endanger the GOP’s congressional majorities.
That sense of panic has not trickled up to Republican leaders, who appear ready to send lawmakers home next week until Jan. 6. By that time, the enhanced subsidies will have lapsed — returning the tax credits to prepandemic levels that assist a much narrower swath of Americans. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated millions of Americans will go without insurance as people drop their plans to avoid having to pay higher premiums.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune left the door open Thursday to an 11th-hour deal but also acknowledged the obvious: They don’t have a lot of time.
“We’ll see where the discussions go,” Thune told reporters after the failed votes. “I think we’ll get a sense for that here pretty soon.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, is plowing forward with a plan to hold a vote next week on a House GOP-authored health care framework that, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal discussions, will not include a subsidy extension. Instead it is likely to mirror aspects of the Senate proposal that mostly united Republicans Thursday but failed to leapfrog the chamber’s 60-vote legislative threshold.
Yet to weigh in is President Donald Trump. While he voiced support this week for giving federal money “to people,” not insurance companies, he also has avoided taking a firm stance for or against an extension of the subsidies.
The White House appears to be tacitly on board with Johnson’s decision not to pursue an extension, with administration officials believing that path unifies the GOP.
“The idea is to put together a package before Christmas that has unity with 218 Republican votes in the House,” said a person familiar with health care discussions on Blue Light News and in the White House who was granted anonymity to discuss them.
“The biggest threat these days is the discharge petition,” the person said, adding that the only way to avoid it is to “put together a consensus plan” among House Republicans.
It was a reference to ongoing bipartisan effort to circumvent leadership and force floor votes on legislation that would temporarily extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies while imposing new eligibility requirements. Two such petitions have been filed and received Republican sign-ons in recent days.
Neither petition has yet to garner the sweeping support from Democrats needed to succeed, however. Instead, Democratic leaders are pushing to discharge a bill that would simply extend the current subsidy framework for three years — to the doorstep of the next presidential election.
“Every single House Democrat is supportive of a straightforward extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday. “All we need are four Republicans to join us.”
With nothing likely to make it to Trump’s desk by the end of the year, lawmakers are increasingly turning their attention to January. Many view the Jan. 30 government shutdown deadline as the real cutoff for a bipartisan health care deal.
Some conservative Republicans are pushing their party to simply pursue a partisan health care bill under the budget reconciliation process, which can skirt the Senate’s 60-vote supermajority requirement. They argue that Democrats are not actually interested in compromising and instead want to run their midterm campaigns on the expired subsidies.
“I know there are some on my side who say 60-vote bills stand the test of time, yadda yadda yadda,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “There are not going to be 60 votes. The Democrats think this is a great political issue for them.”
But others are talking about paths to compromise, even as bipartisan negotiations have struggled to gain traction over months of attempts before, during and after the 43-day government shutdown where Democrats made extending the subsidies the centerpiece of their demands.
One idea already floating around the Senate Thursday was to merge the GOP plan, which expands health savings accounts, with an extension of the subsidies accompanied by the kinds of restrictions contemplated in the House bills subject to discharge petitions. Thune said he is being kept in the loop on the bipartisan and bicameral conversations about how to quickly come up with a deal before the holidays.
Few, however, thought that approach could come together that quickly.
“It would be great if we could get it done next week, but realistically I think we’ve got to look at it as next week but also January,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.).
Among Republicans, the pressure posed by the subsidy cliff is rivaled by the anxiety they are feeling about the approaching midterms. GOP lawmakers in both chambers are warning that they are handing Democrats’ a political cudgel to use against them next year if the tax credits expire.
Democrats will pick “sympathetic cases” to use against Republicans, retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) predicted, “and there will be plenty of them.” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) added that if Republicans are not concerned about the midterm implications, “then you’re living in a cave.”
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned it might already be too late.
“The toothpaste is out of the tube,” he said Thursday. “Once Jan. 1 comes and everyone is locked into their insurance proposals, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
Megan Messerly and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson will meet at the White House Tuesday with the executives of top artificial intelligence companies, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private plans.
The meeting comes as Congress is coming under increasing pressure to put federal guardrails on AI development, as fears mount that technological advancements could soon spiral beyond human control.
Responding to some warnings that AI development was on track to cause human extinction by the end of the decade, Johnson has said he wants Trump and AI CEOs to “go in a big room, close the door and sort this out.” He has yet to endorse major legislative action to address the issue, as Trump has resisted calls for government regulations, citing concerns about lagging behind China.
The president and speaker were in attendance at the State Dinner on Thursday night in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, as were OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. It was not immediately clear which of these executives would be invited to next week’s meeting, and who will be participating.
News that the meeting had been scheduled was first reported by Axios.
A group of 10 Democrats has signed on to Rep. Greg Casar’s (D-Texas) bill that would ban superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until a vetting regime could be stood up.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), both of whom are mulling a 2028 presidential run, are cosponsoring the bill, named the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act.
Khanna, in a statement, noted that he convened a hearing this week on AI safety cooperation between the U.S. and China as ranking member of the House China Select Committee with AI experts who underscored the need for a verifiable pause on superintelligence.
AI superintelligence is an as-yet hypothetical form of the advanced technology that surpasses humans’ cognitive capabilities, but exactly when AI crosses the threshold into superintelligence remains contested. The bill would subject violators to a 20-year prison sentence.
The support from prominent progressives in the Democratic caucus comes as the party is navigating how they would approach AI regulation should they retake control of one or both chambers in November.
Other cosponsors include Reps. Analilia Mejia of New Jersey, Yassamin Ansari and Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Chuy García of Illinois, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Nydia Velázquez of New York.
“We absolutely have to slow down and regulate the advancement of dangerous AI technologies that have the potential to spiral out-of-control and threaten humanity,” Ansari said.
To Lynch, a string of recent AI-led cyberbreaches has “shown us that the advanced forms of this are out of control,” he said in an interview. “We haven’t really solved that control problem yet, nor have we got the alignment problem right yet.”
Casar’s bill, introduced this week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is among the most stringent AI regulations proposed by either party.
Rather than focusing on bans as Casar and his progressive allies have done, centrist Democrats are looking to legislative proposals they say can address the technology’s risks without stifling innovation.
Senate Republicans are discussing whether to call up a data center utility costs bill as they make plans to stay in Washington next week rather than beat an early exit before the midterms.
Two GOP aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Senate will remain in town amid pressure from some corners of the party to send members home early to campaign.
Asked if the Senate will stay next week, Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday it’s “looking that way.”
While some lawmakers had hoped to move a long-brewing bipartisan energy permitting deal, those hopes have evaporated, and GOP leaders are instead eyeing votes on the Ratepayer Protection Act — a top priority of endangered Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.
Thune said Thursday moving to the data-center-focused bill next week “is an option.” The Senate is also expected to take up a Democratic resolution condemning the Iran war and several presidential nominations.
The Ratepayer Protection Act easily passed the House earlier this month, but some Senate Democrats are arguing it does not go far enough and party leaders could be motivated to deny Husted a pre-election win.
Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
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