{"id":14764,"date":"2025-10-23T18:31:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/obamacare-auto-enrollees-are-key-target-as-republicans-formulate-tax-credit-extension-plan\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T18:31:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:31:47","slug":"obamacare-auto-enrollees-are-key-target-as-republicans-formulate-tax-credit-extension-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/obamacare-auto-enrollees-are-key-target-as-republicans-formulate-tax-credit-extension-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Obamacare \u2018auto-enrollees\u2019 are key target as Republicans formulate tax-credit extension plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As Republicans formulate a plan to potentially extend key health insurance subsidies that are at the center of the government shutdown fight, House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie<\/a> warned in an interview Tuesday that any extension would \u201cabsolutely\u201d need to include a crackdown on so-called \u201cphantom\u201d Obamacare enrollees.<\/p>\n

The move is sure to spark a clash with Democrats, who successfully challenged similar provisions from Guthrie\u2019s committees when they were included in the GOP megabill that passed over the summer. But now Republicans have more leverage as Democrats push for the continuation of tax credits that are set to expire Dec. 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s going to be an extension of those tax credits, the program integrity stuff \u2026 absolutely needs to be in place,\u201d Guthrie said.<\/p>\n

He was referencing a suite of Republican policies that would put new curbs on reenrollment for the enhanced insurance subsidies that are at the core of Democrats\u2019 shutdown demands. Republicans and influential conservative health lobbyists complain the status quo leads to waste, fraud and abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you sign up, you\u2019re on it forever,\u201d Guthrie said.<\/p>\n

Democrats argue those complaints aren\u2019t grounded in reality, and the GOP push could set off a larger fight over how Americans enrolled in the program. Many Democrats, especially progressives, are worried about adding new barriers to access coverage, which they argue would disproportionately hit low-income Americans.<\/p>\n

When Republicans tried to insert new curbs in their party-line megabill, Senate Democrats successfully challenged the provisions with the chamber\u2019s parliamentarian.<\/p>\n

Now House and Senate GOP leaders are making a big push for a crackdown on auto-enrollment as they begin talks among themselves and with White House officials about a possible subsidy extension and other conservative health care policy initiatives.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> in particular frequently references phantom enrollment as one problem Republicans want to tackle. At least some Democrats are open to negotiating on the topic, and there have been quiet, informal conversations in the Senate about that piece specifically.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand what their issue is,\u201d Sen. Mark Kelly<\/a> (D-Ariz.) said in an interview Thursday. \u201cAnd if they would work with us and have a real negotiation on how we fix the premiums, I think that is something that we could address.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly confirmed he\u2019s talked to \u201cseveral\u201d Republican colleagues about the policy, adding, \u201cI think they have some points.\u201d The other \u201cother side\u201d of the argument, he said, is that \u201cfolks that don\u2019t have a lot of means, when you put barriers in front of them, they tend to drop their health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert King contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Republicans formulate a plan to potentially extend key health insurance subsidies that are at the center of the government shutdown fight, House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie warned in an interview Tuesday that any extension would \u201cabsolutely\u201d need to include a crackdown on so-called \u201cphantom\u201d Obamacare enrollees. The move is sure to spark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}