{"id":16254,"date":"2025-12-04T00:02:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-democrats-eye-vote-on-3-year-obamacare-subsidy-extension\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T00:02:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:02:21","slug":"senate-democrats-eye-vote-on-3-year-obamacare-subsidy-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-democrats-eye-vote-on-3-year-obamacare-subsidy-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Democrats eye vote on 3-year Obamacare subsidy extension"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate Democrats will propose a three-year extension of soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies for an expected floor vote next week, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss caucus strategy.<\/p>\n

Democrats get to decide what proposal the Senate votes on as part of a deal struck with Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> last month to end the government shutdown. The Senate is expected to hold that vote Dec. 11.<\/p>\n

The strategy likely helps Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> keep his caucus unified on the vote, and it aligns his caucus with House Democrats’ plan to try to force a vote on a three-year extension through a discharge petition.<\/p>\n

But will also limit any chance they would be able to peel off more than a couple of Republicans. Thune said in an interview Wednesday that pitching a clean three-year extension is \u201cdesigned to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get a deal on the subsidies through the Senate, it would need 60 votes to advance. Some GOP senators, including Susan Collins<\/a> of Maine, Lisa Murkowski<\/a> of Alaska and Thom Tillis<\/a> of North Carolina, have backed a two-year extension but have acknowledged there would need to be income caps and other restrictions to pick up more GOP support. Whether or not to include abortion funding restrictions is also a major sticking point.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Schumer didn\u2019t immediately respond to a question about the plan. Schumer declined to tip his hand earlier Wednesday when asked after a meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> if Senate Democrats would offer a three-year extension.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay tuned,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Some of his members want Democrats to put up a more sweeping health care proposal, while others have been discussing a potential compromise with Republicans that would extend the subsidies but with new restrictions.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans need to decide whether they will offer their own counterproposal for a vote next week. Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo<\/a> and Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy<\/a> talked through their ideas, along with other GOP senators, at a closed-door Tuesday lunch.<\/p>\n

Thune on Wednesday evening said they had not yet made a \u201cfinal decision\u201d on whether or not they would put a proposal up for a vote next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll kind of see what the temperature of our members is,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n

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

Senate Democrats will propose a three-year extension of soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies for an expected floor vote next week, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss caucus strategy. Democrats get to decide what proposal the Senate votes on as part of a deal struck with Senate Majority Leader John Thune last month to […]<\/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-16254","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\/16254","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=16254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}