Congress
Democrats are ready to campaign on expired Obamacare subsidies
Obamacare subsidies used by more than 20 million expired Thursday. Now Democrats are ready to make them a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.
The lapse of enhanced premium tax credits, first passed as a pandemic-era relief measure under President Joe Biden in 2021, will immediately hit the pocketbooks of voters — some of whom will see their monthly insurance premiums rise by hundreds of dollars.
Efforts to extend them in some fashion continue on Capitol Hill, but Democratic lawmakers and strategists are already moving to turn the expiration of the subsidies into a potent election-year attack on congressional Republicans. They note that unlike other Democratic messaging targets — such as recent GOP Medicaid cuts that won’t kick in until after midterm ballots are cast — the lost tax credits are already tangible proof of what’s at stake on Election Day.
“The public now gets that the subsidies are what’s keeping health care costs down,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.). “I think the public’s angry. So I think they will blame the party in charge.”
The strategy has been months in the making. Mindful of how the GOP’s efforts to rein in Obamacare powered their massive gains in the 2018 midterms, top party leaders decided in September to make health care the focus of the government funding fight.
That posture led to a record 43-day shutdown, and while some Senate Democrats ultimately agreed to reopen the government without securing an extension of the tax credits, many in the party are increasingly confident they succeeded in putting the issue into focus ahead of the election year.
They also believe it will play into a broader messaging push around affordability — attacking President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans for their failure to address rising costs, of which insurance premiums are just one conspicuous challenge facing Republicans.
“It’s part of the top issue, which is cost of living — whether it’s groceries, gas, housing, energy costs,” said Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.). “Health care seems to be top of mind as something that Congress can actually do to bring down the costs.”
A KFF poll released in December found that large majorities of enrollees in Obamacare marketplace plans want the subsidies to continue, regardless of party. About three-quarters of that group said they would blame Trump or Republicans in Congress if the subsidies were to lapse.
Republicans have encountered difficulties forming a coherent counterattack. Trump has questioned whether affordability is even a problem, calling the focus on living costs a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats and the media. He has instead focused on robust economic growth as a measure of his administration’s success.
On Capitol Hill, top GOP leaders have criticized the expiring subsidies as wasteful — subsidizing some high-income households and susceptible to fraud — but they have not coalesced around a plan to offer relief to the millions of Americans who buy insurance on Obamacare marketplaces. A package of health care measures passed by the House last month on a party-line vote included some conservative proposals to deregulate insurance markets, but they would have little immediate effect before the midterms.
Instead, Republicans are preparing to run on last year’s megabill, which included tax cuts and other provisions that will start kicking in this year. This, they believe, will help them hold onto their congressional majorities.
“House Republicans delivered historic tax relief for working families and are building on it in the new year,” said NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella. “Democrats spent the year blocking commonsense solutions [for the subsidies] and are now having a temper tantrum over a policy cliff of their own making. Their inability to find a consistent message that sticks proves how out of touch they are with the American people.”
Democrats’ party campaign arm is already geared up to push a health-care focused message for the next 10 months. Its leaders have laid out why they believe it’s a key issue heading into the midterms and have already run ads and rented billboards highlighting the GOP’s opposition to continuing the subsidies.
“Make no mistake, the blame behind the skyrocketing health care costs millions are facing today is squarely at the feet of House Republicans, and the American people know it,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “Instead of putting forth a serious proposal to address spiking health care costs, House Republicans chose to focus on delivering massive tax breaks for the wealthiest few — never even allowing a floor vote to save the tax credits before their expiration.”
It is true no vote took place before the expiration, but jitters about an electoral backlash prompted a handful of House Republicans to take the rare step last month of circumventing GOP leadership and signing onto an effort backed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to force a floor vote on a three-year extension of the expired subsidies.
That vote is now expected to take place in the coming weeks, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he has no intention of holding a vote in his own chamber, and even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has played down the prospects of a bipartisan extension.
“Once Jan. 1 comes and everyone is locked into their insurance proposals, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” he said last month.
The purple-district Republicans said they intend to keep trying, and they are coordinating with a bipartisan group of senators that is trying to strike a late compromise to save the subsidies. But Democrats believe it is too little, too late — even as they say it is a telling move.
For the vulnerable Republicans “to come on at the 11th hour shows they get it,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.). “Their constituents are going to be mighty mad, and they’re feeling it already.”
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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