{"id":16184,"date":"2025-12-02T17:16:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-says-abortion-language-a-sticking-point-in-health-care-talks\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T17:16:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:16:55","slug":"thune-says-abortion-language-a-sticking-point-in-health-care-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-says-abortion-language-a-sticking-point-in-health-care-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Thune says abortion language a sticking point in health care talks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that while bipartisan discussions are ongoing around the fate of soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies, abortion restrictions are a major sticking point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are conversations that continue, but as you know the Hyde issue is a difficult and challenging one on both sides,\u201d Thune told reporters.<\/p>\n

The fight over the so-called Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion, has been looming over any potential deal<\/a> to extend the enhanced Obamacare tax credits. And GOP lawmakers, not to mention a cadre of influential anti-abortion groups, quickly noticed the White House\u2019s framework was silent<\/a> on the issue.<\/p>\n

The White House ultimately held off on releasing that framework as it faced a mountain of GOP criticism from conservatives who felt caught off guard that Trump would back a two-year extension of the subsidies \u2014 even when paired with new income caps and other restrictions.<\/p>\n

The Senate is expected to vote next week on a proposal from Democrats to extend the ACA subsidies, but Democrats haven\u2019t yet detailed what bill they will put on the chamber floor.<\/p>\n

Republicans are separately working on a potential counterproposal that would come from Sens. Mike Crapo and Bill Cassidy, chairs of the Senate Finance and HELP Committees, respectively. GOP senators also have yet to decide whether they\u2019ll roll out that plan in time for a vote next week, though, and the substance remains in flux.<\/p>\n

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Monday night that while efforts to reach a bipartisan agreement persist, many lawmakers believe they are ultimately headed toward a failed vote next week. Some senators are already looking at Jan. 30, the next government funding deadline, as the real cut-off for a health care deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re close to a 60-vote threshold yet,\u201d Thune said of bipartisan health care talks.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also uncertainty on the other side of the Capitol about how Republicans will respond to the looming expiration of the subsidies, which could cause premiums to skyrocket in the new year. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at his weekly press conference that he \u201cdidn\u2019t commit to\u201d a short-term extension during a closed-door House GOP members\u2019 meeting Tuesday morning but that \u201cthere will be a Republican response to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve got to do is build consensus deliberately around the best ideas,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re pulling those ideas together \u2026 I can\u2019t project in advance what that will be because I don\u2019t know what the consensus is in that room.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that while bipartisan discussions are ongoing around the fate of soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies, abortion restrictions are a major sticking point. \u201cThere are conversations that continue, but as you know the Hyde issue is a difficult and challenging one on both sides,\u201d Thune told reporters. The fight […]<\/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-16184","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\/16184","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=16184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}