A portion of House and Senate Republicans would like to extend the Obamacare subsidies that expire on December 31, but an even larger portion would not. There is no consensus among Republicans in either chamber on how to move forward, and Democrats are complaining that Republicans are unwilling to negotiate to save the subsidies before the fast-approaching deadline — a feat that is being seen as increasingly unlikely.
“There are no Republicans willing to negotiate over this. None,” lamented U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), according to The Hill. “Where is Donald Trump? Where is the Republican leadership in the House or the Senate? None of them want to talk about health care assistance for American families.”
“They don’t want to talk to the Democrats about that,” added Warren, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. “They want to go off an[d] engage in some fantasy conversation with each other about people who can afford to pay for health care. They have voted to cut health care, and they don’t want to reverse those cuts.”
If, as planned, the Obamacare subsidies expire, millions of Americans will see their monthly health care premiums skyrocket, in some cases by more than double.
While some Republicans have said they do want to extend the subsidies, a major issue is abortion.
Republicans want to put extra guardrails in place to ensure no federal funds pay for abortions, something Democrats say are already in place. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding of abortion.
Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune says for next week’s planned vote on health care, “we might not be far enough along on the bipartisan discussions.” And he warned, “there are some significant sticking points.”
Thune “highlighted an escalating fight over adding language to any bill extending the subsidies to ensure federal money is not spent on abortion care.”
“Dealing with Hyde is a big issue, obviously, for both sides,” he said.
But Thune also insisted there is “a lot of interest” from Republicans, and “a lot of good ideas that go back to try and address what we think are some of the underlying problems with ObamaCare in the first place.”
He said that includes “affordability,” and that “premiums continue to escalate year over year, and we think that has a lot to do with the way it’s structured and how it incentivizes insurance companies to cover people.”
Rather than extending the subsidies, some Republicans want to give federal funds directly to Americans, for individual health care savings accounts, to help them pay for insurance. Funds from those accounts generally are not permitted to pay for insurance premiums.
Meanwhile, others see President Donald Trump as the major sticking point.
“Some Senators in both parties agree that the only path to an extension of some sort relies on heavy involvement from President Donald Trump,” Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday. “Trump, they argue, is more than capable of pushing enough Republicans to accept a compromise that stabilizes health care costs while preventing big GOP electoral losses next November.”
“I don’t think anything will pass without the president’s approval,” said Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD). “There’s lots of ideas out there. Let’s see if we can’t put something together and take it to him.”
U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) said it would “help” if Trump just told Republicans to “Make a deal.”
