U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, appears at an agriculture forum on Sep. 25, 2025, in Kansas City, Missouri, where he discussed health, trade and the politics of a government shutdown. (Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)
As the Senate is expected to vote this week on the Democrats' measure to extend enhanced healthcare subsidies, Republicans are "panicking" over their lack of a healthcare strategy that will ultimately lead to voter backlash and midterm losses, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The Democratic proposal would extend the enhanced healthcare subsidies for three years, but its not expected to pass, the WSJ reports.
If the proposal doesn't pass, they note, it will heighten "the risk that the subsidies will expire and millions of people will see their healthcare costs rise starting next month," they report.
"Republicans haven’t yet united around an alternative proposal, as they struggle with how — or whether — to extend the subsidies and address issues that animate conservatives such as healthcare fraud," they explain.
Republicans are starting to sweat, they report, as they have yet to agree on a healthcare plan of their own, the WSJ reports.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), a doctor, tells the WSJ, "If we don’t have a good economy next November and we don’t have the American dream start to be restored, we’re going to lose."
Marshall plans to introduce his own healthcare-related idea known as “The Marshall Plan Act" on Monday that would "extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies for one year, take aim at healthcare fraud, introduce more price transparency into healthcare and eventually transition to health savings accounts, which President Trump and other Republicans support," they report.
Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) also says the Republicans are going to lose, adding that "The Democrat strategists have got to be thinking about all the sympathetic stories that they’re going to march out, beginning in the first quarter of next year, if we don’t get it done."
Another retiring congressman, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE.), says that if Republicans can’t agree on a healthcare plan, “it’s political malpractice.”