Congress

Republicans will be hard-pressed to pass Trump’s ‘Great Healthcare Plan’

Published

5 months ago

January 20, 2026

President Donald Trump announced his “Great Healthcare Plan” to little fanfare on Capitol Hill last week.

The question now is how willing and able congressional Republicans will be to actually pass any of it into law after stumbling for years over politically toxic plans to undo Obamacare. The prognosis is not encouraging for the White House.

Key parts of the light-on-details proposal likely won’t meet the strict Senate rules for party-line legislation that could skirt a Democratic filibuster. Similar cost-reduction proposals from Republicans ran into problems on that count in last year’s tax-cuts-focused megabill.

White House officials argue the new health care plan features initiatives that should garner bipartisan support, but Democrats are already balking. They’re in no mood to help Republicans out after Trump’s megabill slashed Medicaid funding, and they’re still fighting to revive the expired Obamacare subsidies that the Trump plan rejects.

“Time and again, Donald Trump has made empty promises to the American people about lowering their health care costs, and today’s announcement is no different,” Senate Finance ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement following the release of the White House framework.

Even without the procedural hurdles, uniting Republicans behind a health care plan has repeatedly proven next to impossible. The fate of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies roiled the party for months before they lapsed Jan. 1, and now there are major divisions over whether to pursue more health initiatives using the partisan budget reconciliation process.

One key House faction, the conservative Republican Study Committee, released a blueprint last week for a party-line bill that included health care provisions, and its leaders now argue Trump’s plan mirrors key parts of it. They are among a significant GOP bloc that sees reconciliation as the only way the party can pass health legislation — or any other substantive policy — ahead of the midterms.

“Our framework for a second reconciliation bill includes many of these historic reforms, because that’s how we’re going to secure real wins for the people who sent us here,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), who leads the group of nearly 200 House Republicans, said in a statement to Blue Light News.

But vulnerable incumbents have much less of a stomach for taking up a new health care package before Election Day — especially after the bruising Medicaid and Obamacare subsidy fights.

One House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly about conference dynamics described the appetite among GOP moderates for another major party-line bill — especially a health-focused one — as “not good.”

“You’re going to need 218 votes, which means you’re going to need to build consensus across the conference on what it is we’re pursuing,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a centrist in a tough reelection fight who said the RSC’s plans are “not reflective of the entirety of the conference.”

There’s also major skepticism among Senate Republicans, including some top Trump allies, who understand that many of their ideas don’t qualify under reconciliation rules, which generally allow only for initiatives that are primarily fiscal in nature. Senators have long deferred to the chamber’s parliamentarian on those judgments.

“A lot of the reforms my colleagues thought about earlier, the parliamentarian didn’t accept,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), adding that he expected only “a pretty limited universe” of health care proposals to pass muster.

Indeed, Senate Republicans tried to include one of Trump’s health care proposals in their megabill last year — funding a kind of insurance subsidy for out-of-pocket payments in a bid to lower premiums for some Obamacare plans. The parliamentarian ultimately ruled the measure was noncompliant.

Trump’s call for insurers and providers to publish their prices is also unlikely to qualify for inclusion, considering that any fiscal impact of the transparency measures would be purely incidental to the policy.

Two senior Republicans involved in the internal conversations granted anonymity to speak about them said GOP leaders will likely have to carve out a narrow slice of the Trump health plan to pursue via reconciliation, if that’s even possible. Other pieces, they said, would have to advance through bipartisan talks with Democrats, who have in the past endorsed proposals to crack down on pharmaceutical industry intermediaries who help negotiate drug prices.

A senior administration official said Thursday that “reconciliation would not be necessary” because the ideas sketched out under the health care framework could get bipartisan support. But at a White House event Friday, Trump acknowledged that was unlikely, saying “the problem we’ll have with this is, we’ll get no Democrat votes.”

There’s another complication: A key plank of the Trump plan — codifying “most favored nation” drug pricing deals — is opposed by many senior Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson said last year he was “not a big fan” of the policy as White House officials tried unsuccessfully to shoehorn it into the GOP megabill.

Still, many Republicans are making a public show of embracing the Trump framework — including Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who quickly reinforced the need for a party-line bill to implement the White House plan after it was released Thursday.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs a Senate committee dealing with health care, said he would take “action” on some of the president’s proposals, including codifying transparency rules. Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who has previously expressed deep skepticism about the GOP’s ability to pass another party-line bill, complimented the plan’s “bold vision” and said his panel would move to advance it.

Any action will be in the hands of the top Republican leaders. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune discussed a second reconciliation bill during their regular weekly meeting last week. Thune said the two will “coordinate” but that the House will be “first movers” on any new partisan package.

“They’ve got some ideas about what they want to do with it,” Thune said. “As I’ve said before, you’ve got to have a reason to do it.”

Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.

Congress

Congressional Black Caucus blasts Slotkin over her calls for new leadership in the House

Published

12 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Congressional Black Caucus is emphatically declaring its support for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — and denouncing Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s call for new leadership in Congress.

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, the entirely Democratic CBC declared that it stands united behind the nation’s first Black minority leader of the House. The caucus accused the Michigan senator of “posturing for higher office in 2028” and called attention to her votes to approve multiple members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

“House Democrats don’t need a lesson on reading the political moment from someone who handed Donald Trump one of the most corrupt Cabinets in American history,” the CBC said. “Voting to confirm Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and five other Trump Cabinet secretaries is not the posture of someone who understood the moment’ after 2024.”

The CBC closed its defense of Jeffries with a sharp parting shot of remaining focused on providing for Americans rather than “engaging in distractions that only serve to divide Democrats at a moment when unity and resolve are essential.”

A spokesperson for Slotkin, who has repeatedly called for a new generation of leadership in Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal

Published

15 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.

“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.

The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.

“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”

Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.

Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.

Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

19 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.