GOP Deal for Vote on Obamacare Subsidies Hits a Snag

GOP leaders Thune and Johnson
Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Good evening. What will Congress get done in its last days of legislating for 2025? Here's a look at some of what's ahead this week.

GOP Deal for Vote on Obamacare Subsidies Hits a Snag

This is scheduled to be the final week in session for Congress this year, and lawmakers are trudging to the finish line, hoping to take care of a few last bits of business while leaving much work to be done in the new year.

House Republican leaders are planning a Wednesday vote on a healthcare package they released Friday afternoon called the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act - but the 111-page bill does not include an extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the month and an agreement between GOP leaders and moderates in the party for an amendment vote on such an extension, paired with program reforms, reportedly has run into trouble.

Punchbowl News reported that the agreement with moderates fell apart due to a disagreement over the amendment text. GOP leaders reportedly told moderates that they would have to offset the cost of the subsidy extension, estimated to be $35 billion a year, with other healthcare-related spending cuts - a demand that left moderates with "no good options," per Punchbowl. So instead, the centrist Republicans will offer their amendment before the House Rules Committee, where it is likely to be rejected.

That may please conservatives who want nothing to do with shoring up Obamacare. But it leaves the fate of the GOP package uncertain. That legislation, as we outlined last week, would:

  • Expand association health plans, which let employers join together to buy health insurance;
  • Fund "cost-sharing reduction" payments to insurers, canceled under the first Trump administration, starting in 2027;
  • Require increased transparency on drug prices and spending from pharmacy benefit managers;
  • Shore up 2019 rules allowing employers to give money to workers to buy their own coverage and pay premiums with pre-tax funds;
  • Allow small and mid-sized businesses to get "stop-loss" insurance to self-fund their insurance plans and protect themselves from catastrophic losses.

"While Democrats demand that taxpayers write bigger checks to insurance companies to hide the cost of their failed law, House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation's health care system for all Americans," Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement.

In addition to letting the Affordable Care Act subsidies expire as scheduled, leaving millions facing a surge in costs, the GOP package notably also does not redirect the subsidy funding into health savings accounts, as a Senate Republican plan rejected last week would have done.

Still, Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan healthcare research organization, told CNN that the package "is kind of a greatest hits of Republican health care ideas of the last decade." (Levitt also noted in a post on X that appropriating money for cost-sharing reductions "would actually decrease premium assistance and increase out-of-pocket premiums for many ACA enrollees.")

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Republicans continue to struggle to coalesce behind a healthcare plan - just as they have been for the past 15 years. And it's certainly no surprise that Democrats panned the GOP plan. They continue to insist on a clean extension of the ACA subsidies.

"This so-called plan is the height of irresponsibility, with just five legislative days until premiums skyrocket by as much as $1,000 or $2,000 per month for working class Americans," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday. "The bill will cause millions of people to lose coverage, promotes junk health insurance plans and further limits the freedom of women to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions."

The bottom line: The Senate deadlocked on a pair of competing healthcare bills last week. The House may struggle to pass a GOP plan this week. It's not clear yet what amendments will get a vote, and Republican hardliners are pressing some demands of their own. It's also still not clear whether Democrats will get behind either of two discharge petitions that require 218 signatures to force votes on bipartisan plans for subsidy extensions - or if GOP moderates might sign on to a Jeffries discharge petition to bring up a straight three-year extension of the ACA tax credits. Much remains up in the air, but the strongest likelihood appears to be that Congress's healthcare gridlock will continue into 2026.

Senate Advances 2026 Defense Bill

The Senate voted on Monday to advance the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense policy bill that has been enacted every year since 1961.

The NDAA, which the House passed last week by a vote of 312-112, would authorize $900.6 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2026. The bill would also provide a 3.8% pay raise for troops while showering defense contractors with billions for current and future weapons systems. It is expected to land on President Trump's desk before the end of the year.

One potential hurdle for the bill revolves around regulations for military aircraft flying near Reagan National Airport in Washington. The bill eases restrictions that were placed on military flights following a collision earlier this year between a regional passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed 67 people, and some lawmakers want to maintain the more restrictive rules.

Some experts have echoed those concerns. The less stringent regulations represent "an unacceptable risk to the flying public, to commercial and military aircraft, crews and to the residents in the region," National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said last week. "It's also an unthinkable dismissal of our investigation and of 67 families ... who lost loved ones in a tragedy that was entirely preventable."

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, the committee's senior Democrat, introduced legislation last week that would strike the relevant provision, section 373, from the House-passed NDAA.

However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that he may prefer to address the issue of flight restrictions in a separate spending package, suggesting that the Cruz-Cantwell amendment may be shelved.

Federal Government Looking for Tech Help

The Trump administration on Monday kicked off an effort to find about 1,000 technology specialists interested in joining the federal workforce for two years of intensive development work.

"The US Tech Force is recruiting an elite corps of engineers to build the next generation of government technology," the new program announced on its website. "Backed by the White House, Tech Force will tackle the most complex and large-scale civic and defense challenges of our era - from administering critical financial infrastructure at the Treasury Department to advancing cutting-edge programs at the Department of Defense - and everything in between."

The program comes in the wake of a months-long campaign waged by the Trump administration to reduce the size of the federal workforce, a project that likely worsened the chronic lack of sophisticated tech talent available in the government.

"We have some resources, but certainly it's an area that we need to build out more," said Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, per The New York Times.

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