Congress
Why Senate Republicans aren’t uniting behind a health care plan
Senate Republicans have no shortage of health care plans. The challenge is getting all 53 of them to rally behind one.
Three days before a high-profile vote on a Democratic proposal to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies, GOP senators are nowhere near coalescing behind any single alternative that could be put up alongside it. Instead, Republican leaders appear happy allowing their members to freelance, even as Democrats and some in their own ranks fume at the lack of clear direction.
For Republicans, the risk of proceeding Thursday with a side-by-side vote is clear. While Democrats say they will have their entire 47-member caucus behind the three-year extension, any GOP plan right now is likely to fall well short of complete unity — and highlight the divisions in their party.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune called the upcoming vote on Democrats’ plan “a political messaging exercise,” one he agreed to last month as part of a deal to end the 47-day government shutdown. He didn’t commit to putting up a GOP counteroffer for a vote.
“I don’t think they’re serious about wanting to do a deal yet, so I think that may be what this week is about,” Thune told reporters Monday. “But we’ll see from there if there is a genuine interest in trying to do something.”
GOP senators are expected to further discuss their options at a closed-door lunch Tuesday and make a final decision about their posture. But, according to three Republican aides granted anonymity to comment on internal conference dynamics, leaders are not currently expected to offer an alternative for a vote Thursday.
One of the aides said Republicans will be prepared to make the case they have plenty of ideas and are ready to talk with Democrats once they move off a proposal that won’t get the 60 votes needed to advance.
But some Republicans want their leaders to put some concrete alternatives forward as more than 20 million Americans face the loss of enhanced Obamacare tax credits that were implemented as a Covid relief measure under President Joe Biden in 2021 and later extended through 2025. Without them, many families could see premiums rise by $1,000 a month or more.
“What signal would that send if Republicans say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to say no to the Democrats’ plan, but we’re not going to offer anything?’” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “The message that will send is, good luck to the American people, and we don’t really care.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview that simply standing aside while Democrats vote to extend the subsidies would be “a big mistake.”
“A lot of my colleagues, I think, will be very upset if we don’t put something up,” he said.
But there are multiple competing proposals that are favored by subsets of the Senate GOP. Some of them include shorter extensions of the expiring subsidies. Others seek to replace them with new frameworks, generally involving giving Americans cash in the form of health savings accounts to help underwrite premiums and other costs.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is among those pushing for a clean break from the Affordable Care Act subsidy framework that reflects “what we believe in” as free-market-oriented Republicans. “I always think it’s good to have an alternative,” he said in an interview.
But Thune praised another proposal being circulated by Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chair the health-oriented Finance and HELP committees, respectively.
Their proposal, released Monday, would expand the use of health savings accounts and direct funding toward them without extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
Cassidy said Monday that it is a “leadership decision” if his proposal gets a vote Thursday. Thune took steps Monday night to make the bill available for a vote later this week, as Republicans try to keep options on the table ahead of Tuesday’s lunch.
But Thune also acknowledged some of his members have other ideas centered on extending the enhanced subsidies with a new income cap and other eligibility restrictions. Republican Sens. Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, for instance, propose to extend the expiring subsidies for two years with income cap restrictions and minimum premium payments.
That proposal won some Democratic interest Monday from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 party leader, who called it “encouraging” and “in the ballpark” of a workable solution — though he cautioned he hadn’t seen the details.
“It’s not crazy,” Durbin said. “Let’s have a conversation.”
The Senate GOP is straining to formulate a path forward as House Republicans race to come up with their own plan in hopes of putting some health care legislation up for a vote next week before lawmakers break for the holidays — and the enhanced subsidies expire, returning them to the original levels as passed in the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
House GOP leaders still need to make key decisions, including if they try to assemble one bill or put up a suite of bills for members to pick and choose from. But they, too, are under pressure from a slice of members to embrace an extension of the subsidies — even as most in the party are happy to see them expire.
President Donald Trump hasn’t put forward his own framework, which could have helped rally the disparate factions of his party on Capitol Hill. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hammered Republicans Monday, saying that they “have no plan.”
“The question Republicans face this week is very simple: Will they support our bill and lower people’s premiums or will they block our bill and send premiums through the roof?” Schumer said from the Senate floor Monday.
While the Democratic proposal is expected to fall well short of the necessary 60 votes, a handful of Republicans haven’t said yet how they will vote. Hawley, for instance, said Monday “everything is on the table.”
“What I’m not going to do is do nothing,” he said.
It’s likely Thursday’s vote won’t be the last word on health care this Congress. Thune left the door open to further bipartisan negotiations, and there’s some hope on both sides of the aisle that a failed vote — or votes — could in fact lend new momentum to the talks. Lawmakers are increasingly eyeing Jan. 30, the next government funding deadline, as the real cutoff to land a health care deal.
But getting to that point will require Democrats to compromise and Republicans to get together behind a plan of some kind. Asked Monday if his ranks were united or divided on health care, Thune acknowledged reality for a party that has struggled on the issue for decades.
“I think we have people in different camps, as you would expect,” he said.
Calen Razor and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.
That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.
Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”
Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.
House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.
She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.
But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.
Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.
“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.
He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Lawmakers of both parties questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff Monday in the first broad congressional briefings on President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.
While Democrats asked some of the sharpest questions, participants in an afternoon conference call with House members said, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at one point pressed the administration officials on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.
According to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks, Witkoff and Rubio repeated assurances the administration has privately made to select lawmakers in prior briefings — that the goal is to negotiate a final deal that would prohibit Iran from keeping its highly enriched uranium.
The memorandum of understanding Trump signed earlier this month, they said, was meant to launch those negotiations. Witkoff, the people said, added that the technical team involved in that part of the talks was traveling from Switzerland to Qatar, where talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to happen Tuesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, pushed the administration for more details on what financial benefits Iran could reap under the memorandum — including proceeds from previously sanctioned oil sales.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) went back and forth with Rubio and Witkoff over the lifting of the oil sanctions, two other people granted anonymity on the House call said. The officials eventually cut off the conversation and ended the call.
At another point, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) raised concerns about Witkoff’s business interests in the Middle East as he’s negotiating with Iran, prompting a sharp defense from Rubio, those people said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Rubio and Witkoff about the oil sanctions during a separate all-senators call Monday, saying in a statement afterward that they “confirmed to me that Iran will reap billions in oil revenue while retaining dangerous leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.”
“If this is the administration’s defense behind closed doors, Secretary Rubio should make it under oath, in public, before the Foreign Relations Committee,” Schumer added, calling the briefing “delayed, deficient, and devoid of details.”
An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly countered on Schumer’s characterization, noting that he had previously gotten a briefing of the deal as part of a group of top leaders engaged on national security matters. Schumer, the official said, had the opportunity to ask multiple follow-up questions on the Senate call.
A separate group of White House officials briefed top congressional leaders and key committee chairs in a classified briefing in the Capitol later Monday.
The administration has faced bipartisan skepticism over multiple provisions of the memorandum of understanding — particularly the lifting of oil sanctions and a $300 billion reconstruction fund that many Senate Republicans fear will help fuel Iran’s military and regional proxies.
Rubio and Witkoff sought to ease concerns about the slow reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the critical trade route whose closure has sparked higher fuel and fertilizer costs. Both officials said more mine removal is required, and Witkoff indicated that Iran broke the terms of the Trump-signed deal by launching a drone attack on a passing ship over the weekend.
They also sought to assure lawmakers that Iran has received no money under the memorandum — especially not directly from American sources. Administration officials have previously pledged in smaller briefings that the reconstruction fund won’t include U.S. funds.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the Senate briefing a “productive conversation” but said “much of what I heard today is similar to what I heard last week” during a dinner at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.
The Senate Ethics Committee has dismissed allegations of misconduct levied against Sen. Ruben Gallego, who stood accused by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of “campaign finance violations and inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature.”
The charges came following the resignation of the Arizona Democrat’s longtime friend, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who was forced to step down amid accusations of serious sexual misconduct. Luna, a Florida Republican, sought to implicate Gallego by claiming in an interview on CBS that a woman would come forward about an “incident that occurred between the two of them at the same time and the event was sexual in nature allegedly.”
But in a letter to Gallego sent Monday — which he shared in a public news release — the notoriously inactive Ethics Committee cited Gallego’s “prompt contact with the Committee following media reports of the allegations and appreciated your full cooperation with the Committee throughout the investigation.”
Gallego has maintained he was unaware of the allegations against Swalwell and said in a statement he was a victim of “right-wing conspiracies peddled by far-right activists like Anna Paulina Luna, the White House, and their allies.”
He continued, “I look forward to an apology from Rep. Luna for weaponizing the ethics process while refusing to investigate historic corruption that’s making life harder for families.”
Luna, in a post on X, defended her referral to the Senate Ethics Committee.
“The good news about DC is everyone talks, and eventually the reporters come forward with your texts,” Luna wrote on social media. “Do yourself a favor and keep raising for your legal defense fund. Once a creep always a creep, and you’re gonna need it.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s state. She represents Florida.
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