Congress

Republicans are ready to revive stalled health care legislation. Dems want the GOP to pay a price.

Published

1 year ago

July 21, 2025

Republicans are eyeing an opportunity to enact a bipartisan health package by the end of the year, but Democrats aren’t exactly in a deal-making mood.

With the dust barely settled after enacting their party-line domestic policy megabill, GOP lawmakers on the Senate Finance, House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce committees are hoping they’ll have another shot this year at making policy changes to drug pricing long sought by both parties.

It will be a litmus test for whether lawmakers can come together during President Donald Trump’s polarizing second term — and in the aftermath of the enactment of the Republican megabill, which included the steepest cuts to Medicaid in the program’s history.

Democrats are already suggesting Republicans may have poisoned the well and are countering by playing hardball. One particular demand they’re making as a condition of engagement: a costly extension of expanded tax credits for Affordable Care Act insurance premiums that are set to expire at the end of the year.

The tax credits, which Democrats enacted over Republican objections during the Biden administration, reduced the cost of insurance on the 2010 health law exchanges for millions of middle- and upper-income people for the first time. Extending them will will be a tough pill to swallow for Republicans now, too — particularly in the House, where Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith of Missouri recently suggested it could be a nonstarter for his conference.

In an interview, Smith said there are “opportunities to do several bipartisan items in health care and tax and in trade” following the passage of Trump’s megabill. But, he added, extending the enhanced tax credits would be “a big problem for a lot of my members.”

Smith went on to blame Democrats for failing to move forward on bipartisan health policies.

“PBMs have always been bipartisan,” said Smith, referring pharmaceutical benefit managers and proposals to overhaul how they negotiate drug prices with manufacturers on behalf of health plans.

“The cancer screen has always been bipartisan, the weight loss stuff has been bipartisan,” he continued. “There’s a lot of bipartisan provisions that have always failed because the Democrats have failed to come to the table.”

Smith’s Democratic counterpart on the House tax-writing committee, ranking member Richard Neal of Massachusetts, said in an interview Thursday he’d be willing to restart negotiations — but only if an extension of the ACA subsidies is part of the equation.

Asked if it had to be included in any larger bipartisan health package, Neal said, “It has to be.”

He added: “I also think it’s a reminder of how [Republicans are] filing legislation to undo what they did three weeks ago. What’s hilarious is they are either saying they didn’t know what was in their own legislation or now they want to get away from what they voted for in their own legislation.”

Neal was referring to legislation from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would roll back major changes to Medicaid — which he just voted for as part of the megabill.

There’s been chatter for months about reviving a sweeping bipartisan health care package that was on track for passage last December as part of a larger government funding bill, but House GOP leaders dropped the health care provisions after Trump and Elon Musk said that funding bill was overly broad and threatened to tank it. A major part of the health package included proposals to crack down on PBMs, who critics accuse of charging higher prices for medications to health plans than the reimbursements they send to pharmacies, among other things.

As Smith alluded to, the Ways and Means Committee is also eyeing legislation from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) for inclusion in the new health package. Kelly’s bill, which was marked up and approved by the panel last summer, would allow weight loss drugs for treatment of obesity, like Wegovy and Zepbound, to qualify for Medicare coverage. Federal law currently bans Medicare from covering drugs for weight loss, even though Medicare covers pharmaceuticals for other conditions such as heart disease.

The drugs are expensive and a Biden administration plan to increase coverage of them, which Trump shelved in April, would have cost $25 billion over ten years, according to the agency that runs Medicare.

Another bill sponsored by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) — which would reauthorize a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health programs to offer free breast cancer screenings to low-income, uninsured and underinsured women — is also under consideration for that package.

But Democrats are furious with Republicans for first plowing through Medicaid changes in the megabill, then passing $9 billion in funding cuts across an array of federal programs, including those related to global health initiatives.

“If we keep making progress on [appropriations] … there is a chance we can do the health care package,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Thursday following the Senate’s vote on Trump’s rescissions request. “But that chance got worse overnight.”

Coons has previously co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) to change how PBMs calculate health insurance deductibles. Marshall said last week that coming back to the table on bipartisan PBM legislation was “a top priority.”

But Democrats are also pointing out that Republicans are looking at policies that would reduce drug costs, and expand federal health insurance coverage of drugs, right after they stripped hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid.

“When you make changes in Medicaid, that’s going to ripple through the rest of the health care system,” said the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. “As far as I can tell, that’s just a pipe dream, because what [Republicans] want to do is pass another partisan reconciliation bill.”

A senior Senate Democratic aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly, added: “Democrats will not be a part of any effort to selectively dismantle the American health care system after Republicans put it on life support.”

At the same time, Democrats need Republicans to help them extend the enhanced ACA tax credits they enacted as part of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, and then continued through 2025 in the Inflation Reduction Act. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a progressive philanthropy, found that health care premiums for people at or near the federal poverty line would skyrocket as a result of the credits’ expiration. People at the poverty line could see monthly premiums grow from $1 to $24, the foundation said.

Oneestimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the number of uninsured people would rise by an average of 3.8 million every year between 2026 and 2034 if the credits expire.

“It’s a hugely important priority for working families. Health costs have gone through the stratosphere,” said Wyden.

House conservatives have balked, though, at the cost of extending them. According to another CBO analysis requested by Smith and House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), a permanent extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies would cost $383 billion. Republicans have argued that a chunk of the increased benefits go to higher-earners and that the subsidies artificially inflate premiums charged by health plans.

What remains to be seen, though, is whether Republicans want a PBM overhaul badly enough to trade an extension of the subsidies.

When asked whether he could tolerate such a deal, Senate Finance member Todd Young (R-Ind.) said in an interview Thursday that he would have to “think about it.”

Another Finance Republican, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, appeared more receptive, saying his party “need[s] to” enact a PBM package this Congress.

“I think that is something that is going to have to be part of the discussion here to get to 60 votes,” Daines said.

Robert King, Jennifer Scholtes and Josh Siegel contributed to this report.

Congress

Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

Published

1 day ago

October 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.

One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.

“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.

A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.

The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.