Lawmakers are running short on time. The subsidies expire at the end of the year. — Bloomberg
NEW YORK: Expiring Obamacare subsidies face an uphill battle for renewal in the coming weeks as Democrats race against the clock to try to find enough Republicans willing to back an extension.
Millions of Americans facing a sharp spike in premiums must soon decide whether to pay the higher bills or forgo health care, as insurance companies brace for a potentially large dent in revenue.
While some Senate Grand Old Party (GOP) moderates said they would like to see the subsidies extended at least temporarily with some additional guardrails, leading health care policy voices in the party, long skeptical of the underlying Obamacare law itself, have sought to steer conversation away from the enhanced premium tax credits in favour of more sweeping alternative proposals that could reshape US health insurance markets.
Lawmakers are running short on time. The subsidies expire at the end of the year.
“We start from the premise that Obamacare is a disaster and unaffordable, unsustainable, and so how do we provide access to coverage that is meaningful, but is sustainable?” Senator John Cornyn told reporters on Monday. “There are many, many ideas and no conclusions.”
A group of eight Senate Democrats cut a deal with Republicans to end the shutdown in exchange for a vote in the coming weeks on the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits expiring at the end of this year.
The deal to resolve the shutdown didn’t guarantee the extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, and that omission sent health insurance stocks tumbling on Monday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate would try to strike a deal that addresses the expiration of the subsidies that lower costs for most of the 24 million people enrolled in ACA exchanges.
“My expectation is the president will want to do something on health care costs,” Thune said. President Donald Trump spent the weekend bashing Obamacare online and floating alternative plans that would send direct payments to enrollees.
“I want, instead of going to the insurance companies, I want the money to go into an account for people with their own health insurance,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
“Call it Trump Care, call it whatever you want to call it,” the president said of his plan, adding that the Obamacare law was a disaster.
Other Republicans were sceptical of reaching a compromise, noting the time constraints and cost of the subsidies.
In the House, the expiring premium tax credits face even higher hurdles. Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to promise a vote on the issue.
“I don’t think you can get a health care deal because it’s unaffordable,” GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said.
Extending the subsidies for an additional year through 2026 would cost the federal government an estimated US$23.4bil.
Even the Democrats who struck the deal with Republicans acknowledged that the guaranteed vote was unlikely to result in an extension of the subsidies, but a vote would force Republicans on the record on the politically popular subsidies.
If such a vote fell short because Republicans objected, or if the GOP-led House refused to take up an extension plan at all, the failure to extend the popular policy could hand Democrats a potent political campaign issue leading into the 2026 midterm elections. — Bloomberg
