Four House Republicans have broken with Speaker Mike Johnson and will join a House Democratic discharge petition that would bring a measure to renew "temporary" Obamacare subsidies, which Congress passed during the pandemic, for three years to the floor for an up-or-down vote.
The subsidies for Obamacare will expire at year's end, and the vote on the discharge petition won't happen until January. It's another sign that Johnson's days as speaker of the House may be numbered.
Johnson crafted a compromise measure without any subsidies that included some free market reforms like allowing Americans to purchase large Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and placing income caps on the "temporary" subsidies, which were supposed to expire when the COVID-19 emergency was over.
But the moderates are balking because not subsidizing Obamacare plans will cause millions of Americans to lose their insurance. Allowing the subsidies to expire will cost Republicans a lot of votes, especially since Johnson's alternatives to Obamacare subsidies can't get passed.
Democrats want to extend the subsidies for three years until they believe they will regain control of Congress. Even if the measure passes in January, it doesn't have a prayer in the Senate.
The Cato Institute's Michael F. Cannon describes Obamacare as "junk insurance at outrageous premiums." The subsidies hide the real cost of the insurance, which is skyrocketing as a result of Biden's inflation and the inability of the government to control health care costs.
Extending the subsidies through the ruse of a "temporary" emergency Obamacare program that covers upper-middle-class Americans is unnecessary and ruinously expensive.
"The program may have been enacted into law as the Affordable Care Act, but the only thing keeping it affordable was a flood of taxpayer money to conceal its true expense," writes Reason.com's J.D. Tuccille.
Even if the subsidy bill were to pass the House, which is far from assured, it would face an arduous climb in the Republican-led Senate.
Republicans last week voted down a three-year extension of the subsidies and proposed an alternative that also failed. But in an encouraging sign for Democrats, four Republican senators crossed party lines to support their proposal.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued against the Democratic extension as “an attempt to disguise the real impact of Obamacare’s spiraling health care costs.”
Johnson's failure to pass any health care reform will weigh on Republicans in next year's midterm elections. It's not like there aren't genuine alternatives to subsidies. Reforming health care is doable, but can it be done with minimal disruption to the current system?
"I, for one, continue to support the repeal of Obamacare and replacing it with true free market reforms, not just some rearranging of the current system," Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) commented in the Senate. "Legalizing cross-state health care buying co-ops and letting everyone have an HSA is the only truly conservative option."
Paul's legislation would increase access to HSAs by removing income caps. HSAs wouldn't be contingent on specific types of insurance plans, as they now are. It would also raise HSA contribution limits from $4,400 for individuals and $8,750 for families as of 2026 to $24,500. That's money put away without paying taxes on it—a significant advantage in terms of saving not just for medical expenses, but for retirement since HSA money can be used for non-medical expenses once you hit age 65. Even before then, Paul's bill would expand what HSAs could cover.
There is no way that Democrats are going to allow Republicans to "fix" Obamacare or the healthcare system. That means Republican congressional leadership will need to develop a plan that nearly their entire caucus supports. Judging by what we've seen these past few days, the GOP is hopelessly divided and will never coalesce behind any plan.
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