The Senate voted on two competing health care plans to address the expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies on Thursday. Both were largely messaging votes that gave both parties something to point to when constituents are hit with skyrocketing health care costs after the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
Both failed to meet the 60 vote threshold on the Senate floor.
Democrats were united in support of their plan which offered a simple solution: extend the current ACA subsidies for three years. Four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) — crossed the aisle to support the Democratic plan.
Meanwhile Senate Republicans remain divided on how to address the expiring subsidies. Senate Republicans had one defector — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — on the plan they put on the floor.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) did not vote on either plan.
The GOP plan — a framework put forward by Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — would have created government-funded health savings accounts to replace the enhanced subsidies. That’s what President Donald Trump instructed congressional Republicans to do last month — send money directly to individuals and don’t “waste your time and energy” on anything else.
Senate Republicans put their competing plan on the floor, seemingly to help them claim they have a solution to the expiring subsidies and explain away their opposition to Democrats’ clean extension. But in reality they are far from unified on the issue and lack a clear plan for the party to coalesce around.
The failed floor votes were triggered by the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and Democrats’ push to address the expiring subsidies. For months, Senate Democrats asked Republicans to work with them on an extension to the Obamacare subsidies, among other things, in exchange for their votes on a continuing resolution that would have either kept and later reopened the government. Republican leadership refused, saying they would only negotiate on the expiring subsidies as part of a conversation separate from government funding.
After more than 40 days of stalemate, a group of Democrats caved and voted for a stopgap in exchange for the mere promise that Senate Democrats would get a floor vote on an Obamacare-related bill of their choice before the end of the year. That promise, of course, did not guarantee that the bill would pass the Senate as Thursday’s vote proved, or, if it had, that the House would take up the bill.
In fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) strategy around the issue has been centered on inaction — so much so that members of his own caucus have filed and are supporting discharge petitions to vote on extending the enhanced subsidies.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) filed a discharge petition to extend the ACA subsidies for two years while imposing new eligibility requirements . It has enough Republican support, if paired with Democrats, to force a floor vote. Meanwhile, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) also has a discharge petition that would extend the subsidies for one year. Several House Republicans have already signed on to it.
So here we have the result of the Big Lie that was given to get the government re-opened. The GQP has no plan and they don’t care. They’ll say they tried to keep their half-assed promise to fix ACA, but they failed because the Dems wouldn’t come around.
Now, their constituents that are going to get burned with the new rates will have permission to blame the party that tried to save them, instead of the party that took their insurance away.
It’s funny how this works…