Congress
GOP leaders map out potential Obamacare extension as hard-liners warm to health talks
Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are quietly ramping up talks within their senior ranks and with White House officials over how to structure and advance a potential extension of key Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies before the end of the year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the conversations.
One option under serious consideration is, once the government shutdown ends, attaching a revamped subsidy framework to a small bipartisan package of full-year funding bills or a long-term stopgap running through early next year, the people said. GOP leaders have been encouraged as some of their party’s most conservative members warm up to potentially passing an extension — albeit with major provisos.
Key Republicans have floated a list of possible ways to curb the subsidies without eliminating them entirely when they expire on Dec. 31. Those include imposing an income cap for beneficiaries, forcing some individuals to pay a minimum out-of-pocket premium or grandfathering in current enrollees while cutting off new enrollment.
The expiring health insurance subsidies are at the heart of Democrats’ shutdown demands, and extending them will require a bipartisan deal to get them enacted in Congress. But while some Republicans are quietly talking about options across party lines, GOP leaders are publicly insisting they will only seriously discuss an extension deal after Democrats agree to reopen the government.
Still, it’s significant that those leaders are sketching out what a deal might look like and how it might move through the House and Senate once agencies reopen. While the three people said the conversations remain high-level at this point, one option under early consideration is to pair a two-year extension of scaled-back subsidies with some other conservative health care policy provisions, then attach it to some of the annual spending bills that have so far been stuck in partisan limbo.
Passing that package through the House would be tricky for Speaker Mike Johnson, who would likely face opposition from hard-liners firmly opposed to any extension of the Democratic health law known as Obamacare. The three people said the plan would involve advancing it through the chamber under “suspension of the rules,” a procedure that would sidestep a tricky party-line procedural vote but would require a two-thirds bipartisan majority to pass.
Doing so, the people said, would require a public endorsement from President Donald Trump in order to build GOP support for the package.
White House officials have been involved in the internal discussions about structuring the extension of the subsidies and about what other GOP health policy priorities might be included alongside it.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has been publicly pushing to add provisions that could build more conservative support, including expanding association health plans and encouraging the use of tax-free Health Savings Accounts.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune also made clear in an interview last week he is seeking new restrictions on the subsidies as part of any extension — and possibly other conservative health policies as well.
Building GOP support in the House, where a major swath of Republicans oppose any ACA extension, is a huge task. But even some prominent hard-liners are now publicly saying they could possibly support a larger health care package — so long as any extension of the subsidies includes significant changes.
They’ve been privately signaling as much for weeks now and are eager to steer the talks to add more conservative policy items, especially as Trump himself has said he’s open to negotiating a larger health care deal after the shutdown ends.
They’re also hoping to shape how the deal moves through Congress. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview Monday that while leadership could move a health care package attached to a bundle of funding bills, he said he would prefer “a standalone bill.”
The spending bills, Harris said, “should be kept as clean as possible.” And he added that his support for the health care piece “depends on what the whole package is” and that he wants the ACA credits to be eventually sunsetted completely in any deal.
“If you had tremendous savings over 10 years and you were able to wind down the Covid-era enhancements — yeah, I mean, we’ll look at anything,” he added.
Rank-and-file Democrats have been warming to income caps and other new restrictions for the ACA subsidies themselves, but it’s not at all clear they would be willing to accept a total phase-out of the subsidies — let alone other GOP health policies.
In other words, finding middle ground with Republicans who want a more serious overhaul of the health care system could be impossible. But for now, GOP members such as Texas Rep. Chip Roy are sounding an upbeat note.
“If we have health care reforms on the table that protect and provide greater freedom and independence for patients and doctors, then I’m on board with things that would help build a package,” Roy, a Freedom Caucus member, said in an interview Monday.
He, too, said his support would depend on how quickly the expanded subsidies are phased out and the larger scope of health policy proposals — listing provisions that would boost “direct primary care, Health Savings Accounts” as items conservatives are interested in.
“You wrap that in then with whatever it takes to get the votes,” he said. “I’m always open to that.”
Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
Speaker Mike Johnson is raising the possibility of a “bipartisan” path forward on extending a key spy authority after negotiations among House Republicans blew up late last week.
“We’re confident that we’ll be able to find strong bipartisan consensus that builds off of the really meaningful reforms that we included in the legislation the last time we reauthorized it,” Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday morning.
The emergency short-term reauthorization Congress cleared last week expires April 30, putting pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal quickly.
Among the options GOP leaders are discussing: If the Senate can advance a three-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with policy changes, the House could then pass it with a majority of Republicans and some Democrats, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of ongoing conversations.
It’s also possible Johnson could put that measure on the House floor under an expedited procedure that does not require prior adoption of a party-line rule, but would need a two-thirds majority voting in the affirmative to secure passage. House GOP leaders still need to appease hard-liners who have very specific demands for new guardrails on warrentless surveillance practices as part of any reauthorization measure.
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, aren’t promising cooperation — and they’re skeptical Johnson is as close to a deal as he might suggest.
“His confidence meter was always pretty high, and then he put a bill on the floor that had zero consensus among his caucus, and looked like the disaster that it was after midnight,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California told reporters Tuesday.
He added that he has not had “any discussions” yet with Republican counterparts on next steps for Section 702, and “absent those conversations, it’s going to be hard to find bipartisan consensus.” Aguilar also said that Democrats would follow the leads of House Intelligence Chair Jim Himes of Connecticut and Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
Johnson is planning to meet Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Darin LaHood of Illinois later Tuesday as the pair of Republicans works with Democrats on a bipartisan FISA extension plan, according to two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling.
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham unveiled a fiscal blueprint Tuesday paving the way for the GOP’s party-line immigration enforcement plan.
The budget resolution is the first step in Republicans’ two-step plan to deliver a bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other agencies to President Donald Trump’s desk by his self-imposed June 1 deadline.
Senate Republicans are aiming to adopt the budget resolution this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune can lose as many as three GOP members so long as Vice President JD Vance is available to break ties.
“Republicans are doing something that must be done quickly, and that our Democrat colleagues are trying to prevent us from doing. That something is simple: fully fund Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great threat to the United States,” Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement.
The budget resolution tasks the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with drafting the subsequent immigration enforcement bill.
The resolution gives the committees until May 15 to hand over text. It sets a ceiling of $70 billion for the Judiciary Committee’s portion and $70 billion for the Homeland Security panel’s portion. While the language would allow for a larger bill, a Graham aide said Tuesday that Republicans are aiming to keep the measure to about $70 billion.
Senate Republicans are expected to take an initial vote on the budget resolution as soon as Tuesday afternoon. After that they’ll need to complete a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama before they can approve the fiscal blueprint and send it to the House.
Democrats are expected to force several amendments related to cost-of-living concerns. Senate conservatives could also try to expand the scope of the bill, though GOP leaders hope to avoid making any changes to Graham’s text.
House Republicans could take their own vote next week. They are also waiting to grant approval of a Senate-passed deal to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security. Speaker Mike Johnson has delayed action on the measure amid hard-right demands that the Senate move on the immigration enforcement funding bill first.
Some House conservatives want the Senate to complete the entire reconciliation process, which allows ICE funding to bypass a Democratic filibuster, before they take up the larger DHS deal. That could drag the agency’s shutdown deep into May.
Senate Republicans are aiming to put the final immigration enforcement bill on the floor the week of May 11.
Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan offered a rare acknowledgment from a GOP leader Tuesday that the U.S. economy might not be in tip-top condition. McClain, the Republican Conference chair, said at a news conference that “even with bigger [tax] refunds, many families are struggling right now, and I get it.”
That’s a departure from the message President Donald Trump sent at a event in Las Vegas last week, where he said “everything’s doing really well” and played down the impact of higher energy prices since he ordered military strikes on Iran.
“But we also owe it to the American people to be honest about how we got here, to make sure we don’t ever go back again,” McClain, the No. 4 party leader added, saying Americans are “digging out of a hole” from former President Joe Biden’s administration.
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