{"id":16181,"date":"2025-12-02T13:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-the-health-care-talks-to-watch\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T13:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T13:02:11","slug":"capitol-agenda-the-health-care-talks-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-the-health-care-talks-to-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: The health care talks to watch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senators will be voting on health care in about a week. Their chances of success are not good.<\/p>\n

The most likely outcome: two failed votes on competing partisan proposals and no certain solution<\/a> to the Affordable Care Act subsidy cliff.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean all is said and done. Senate Republicans and Democrats head into their respective party lunches Tuesday with lots of competing options to discuss. And even after the likely-to-fail Senate votes, talks will continue \u2014 with many lawmakers now viewing the Jan. 30 government funding deadline as the real drop-dead date.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there\u2019s \u201cgroundwork being laid that could end up in actually something getting done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are the multiple tracks to keep an eye on:<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Senate Democratic proposal:<\/b> Expect Democrats to discuss Tuesday what they plan to offer up next week. Most likely is a \u201cclean\u201d extension of the ACA subsidies that few Republicans support, though they could offer GOP-favored eligibility restrictions as an olive branch to conservatives.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Senate GOP alternative:<\/b> Most Republicans expect a \u201cside-by-side\u201d vote with a GOP alternative to the Democratic bill. GOP Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are preparing that counterproposal, though it\u2019s unclear what that might include or when it would be introduced.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The House GOP framework:<\/b> House leaders have tasked three committees with assembling a package of bills which they are tentatively looking to put on the floor before the chamber\u2019s scheduled Dec. 18 departure for the holiday recess. Don\u2019t expect this to get any Democratic buy-in.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The House centrists\u2019 plan:<\/b> Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told Blue Light News Monday he has talked with the White House about a bill he is working on and shopping with likeminded moderates that would largely mirror Donald Trump\u2019s unreleased framework<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where nobody\u2019s going to love it. But hopefully enough people are okay with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Senate bipartisan talks:<\/b> If a passable product is ever going to emerge, it\u2019s probably coming out of this effort dating back to before the government shutdown involving the likes of Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). They are looking to forge compromise on an extension of the subsidies, but there\u2019s not much time left.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe calendar is not necessarily our friend right now,\u201d Murkowski said in a brief interview.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Special election fight in Tennessee: <\/b>Speaker Mike Johnson spent valuable time Monday boosting a Republican candidate in Tuesday\u2019s Tennessee special election as the GOP hopes to shore up its slim House majority. Polling shows Republican Matt Van Epps leading Democrat Aftyn Behn by only single-digit margins, catching the attention of the president and national Republicans as they scramble to hang onto what should be a deep-red district.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Children\u2019s internet safety hearing: <\/b>A partisan fight is brewing over whether to include state AI laws in legislation to protect kids\u2019 safety online. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing Tuesday on the issue, fulfilling a promise made by committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) to advance kids\u2019 safety legislation.<\/p>\n

\u2014 NDAA text coming Thursday: <\/b>House Armed Services plans to release text for the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Monday night. Rogers said he believes a moratorium on state AI regulation will not make it into the final version of the NDAA, despite an effort from Trump and some GOP leaders to include the language.<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Calen Razor, Meredith Lee Hill, Katherine Long and Alfred Ng contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senators will be voting on health care in about a week. Their chances of success are not good. The most likely outcome: two failed votes on competing partisan proposals and no certain solution to the Affordable Care Act subsidy cliff. But that doesn\u2019t mean all is said and done. Senate Republicans and Democrats head into […]<\/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-16181","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\/16181","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=16181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}