A handful of Republicans broke with House Speaker Mike Johnson on a vote to extend enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace.
Seventeen Republicans–almost all of them from swing districts–joined Democrats on the legislation that passed the House on Thursday evening. The final vote was 230-196.
The tax credits expired at the end of December, affecting at least 20 million Americans who receive their insurance through marketplaces created by the 2010 healthcare law, commonly known as Obamacare. But House Speaker Mike Johnson opposed extending the tax credits.
That led to four Republicans–Reps. Mike Lawler of New York, as well as Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie–joining a discharge petition pushed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to extend the credits for three years.
“I heard from independent business owners and small business owners, snowplow people, landscaping people that are buying their health insurance on the exchange,” Bresnahan told The Independent. “And they are actively seeing the percentage increase affiliated with their health insurance for themselves.”
Any member can force a vote on their legislation regardless of party if a majority of members sign their discharge petition.
That petition that would lower healthcare insurance costs for millions now has a new hurdle: the U.S. Senate. But on Thursday evening, the House broke out into applause as the vote closed.
“It's about damn time,” Democratic Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire told The Independent. “We have the votes before the end of the year, and this is a common-sense solution that's going to prevent a death spiral in my district, and is going to allow us to keep critical access hospitals open.”
But the legislation, as it exists – a clean extension of tax credits – likely will not pass through the Senate. A bipartisan working group in the Senate is negotiating a version of the legislation that could receive 60 votes in the Senate.
“If there's a lot more Republicans on the House side, that will send a good message as well,” Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, part of the working group, told The Independent.
Bresnahan said Moreno spoke with a group of House members about the potential legislation.
“So I think it's exactly, it's what is happening, is exactly what we intended to happen,” Bresnahan told The Independent. “It hopefully will be conference in a bicameral and bipartisan fashion, and then have something that we can ultimately put across the finish line.”
Democrats had attempted to pass a clean three-year extension before the end of the year, which ultimately failed.
“I'm never going to throw in the towel on bringing down health care costs from my hard-working constituents, but I have also not seen my Republican colleagues in the Senate stand up in the way that they will need to if we're going to pass a bill with 60 votes,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin said.
Thursday’s vote came after many other House Republicans had proposed alternative bipartisan measures to extend the tax credits with some other reforms. Many Republicans wanted to see caps on who receives the tax credits based on income or extend them for a shorter period of time.
“We feel that we have, we're working on a good product here, and that we can strike the necessary balance,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a New York Republican who voted against the bill on Thursday, told The Independent.
But there remain major sticking points. Some Democrats worry that Republicans might want to insert language preventing the tax credits from going toward abortions.
“Democrats have been working and fighting for half a year now to try to keep access to health care, and it's the Republicans who said ‘no, no, no,’” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told The Independent.
“We're open to ideas and negotiating, but that's a non-starter,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told The Independent.
Earlier in the week, President Donald Trump told Republicans, “You have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” in reference to the amendment that bans taxpayer dollars from paying for abortions.
“You’ve got to work something,” he said. You’ve got to use ingenuity. You’ve got to work. We’re all big fans of everything, but you’ve got to have flexibility."
The move is the second time that rank-and-file members defied Republican leadership. Earlier in the day, five Republican senators joined with Democrats to vote on an effort to limit Trump’s ability to initiate further attacks into Venezeula.
The vote also notches a victory for Jeffries, who took a wait-it-out approach rather than trying to meet some frontline Republicans in the middle on health care tax credits and pushed for his caucus to hold the line and force Republican members to sign his discharge petition.
After the vote, Jeffries–who, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has come under criticism for a lack of gravitas during a Trump presidency– took a victory lap.
“In this first full week of the new year, House Democrats, every single one of us joined by 17 Republicans, have partnered in a bipartisan way to protect the health care of the American people,” he told reporters.
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