17 Republicans Join With Dems To Pass Obamacare Subsidies Extension

How often do Democrats go off the reservation to vote with Republicans instead of voting 100% with what Dem leadership says?

House passes 3-year extension of ObamaCare subsidies

The House passed legislation Thursday to revive and extend expired ObamaCare tax credits in a bipartisan vote that is boosting hopes of centrist Republicans for a bipartisan deal to revive the tax credits.

The tally, 230 to 196, highlighted the tenuous grip Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has over his restive GOP conference. Seventeen centrist Republicans crossed the aisle to join every voting Democrat in support of the measure.

The measure, which would provide a three-year extension to the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that originally passed in response to COVID-19, now heads to the Senate, which defeated the same proposal last month in a largely partisan vote. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has suggested he’ll ignore the House bill altogether.

Still, lawmakers think it could light a fire and pressure the bipartisan Senate group working to reach a bipartisan deal.

From everything I’ve seen all the bill does is extend the subsidies. Doesn’t require working to fix the problems caused by Obamacare and previous massive subsidies, doesn’t take care of the problem of ever-skyrocketing premiums and deductibles. Perhaps that could be put in the Senate version? Maybe they could figure out something, because what you can now expect is that the premiums, and maybe deductibles, will continue to go up up up, just as they have been doing.

Yet even some of the most vocal supporters of the ACA subsidies say the House bill is dead in the water when it’s sent to the Senate.

“The three-year extension is never going to become law. We know that. The Senate already voted on it. They voted it down,” said Lawler, who was one of the four Republicans who endorsed the Democrats’ discharge petition forcing Thursday’s House vote. “So the question becomes, procedurally, how do you actually get to a compromise?”

Drag in professionals to figure out ways to fix the system, because, let’s face it, the chance of Ocare going away is just above zero, like every big government program that gets weaved into the fabric of society. It needs to be fixed because those rising premiums are also affecting the people not on Ocare. How about removing the forced insurance requirement? Making the tax if you don’t have health insurance so low it is meaningless? Offering catastrophic plans?

BTW, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, the entire point of the original expiring premium subsidies was to put Republicans on the hook, make them look bad.