4 Republicans defy House speaker to force vote on extending Obamacare subsidies

Four centrist Republicans broke with Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday and signed onto a Democratic-led petition that will force a House vote on extending for three years an enhanced pandemic-era subsidy that lowers health insurance costs for millions of Americans.\nThe stunning move comes after House Republican leaders pushed ahead with a healthcare bill that does not address the soaring monthly premiums that millions of people will soon endure when the tax credits for those who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act expire at year’s end.\nDemocrats led by Hakeem Jeffries of New York needed 218 signatures to force a floor vote on their bill, which would extend the subsides for three years.\nRepublican congressmen Brian Fitzpatrick, Robert Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, all from Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler of New York signed on Wednesday morning, pushing it to the magic number of 218. A vote on the subsidy bill could come as soon as January under House rules.\n“Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.” Fitzpatrick said in a statement.\n\nJohnson told reporters Wednesday that “I have not lost control of the House” and he noted that Republicans have a razor-thin majority that allows a small number of members to employ procedures that would not usually be successful in getting around leadership.\n“These are not normal times,” Johnson said.\nThe revolt against Republican leadership came after days of talks centred on the healthcare subsidies.\nJohnson had discussed allowing more politically vulnerable Republican lawmakers a chance to vote on bills that would temporarily extend the subsidies while also adding changes such as income caps for beneficiaries.\nBut after days of discussions, the leadership sided with the more conservative wing of the party’s conference, which has assailed the subsidies as propping up a failed marketplace through the ACA, which is widely known as “Obamacare”.\nHouse Republicans pushed ahead on Wednesday with a 100-plus-page healthcare package without the subsidies, instead focusing on long-sought Republican proposals designed to expand insurance coverage options for small businesses and the self-employed.\nFitzpatrick and Lawler tried to add a temporary extension of the subsidies to the bill, but were denied.\n“Our only request was a floor vote on this compromise, so that the American people’s voice could be heard on this issue. That request was rejected. Then, at the request of House leadership I, along with my colleagues, filed multiple amendments and testified at length to those amendments,” Fitzpatrick said.\n“House leadership then decided to reject every single one of these amendments.”\n\n“As I’ve stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge,” Fitzpatrick said.\nLawler, in a social media post, similarly said that “the failure of leadership” to permit a vote had left him with “no choice” but to sign the petition. He urged Johnson to bring the plan up for an immediate floor vote.\nJeffries, for several weeks, had called on Republicans to sign his discharge petition. He particularly challenged Republicans in competitive congressional districts to join the effort if they really wanted to prevent premium increases for their constituents.\n“Mike Johnson needs to bring the bill to the floor today,” Jeffries said. “Our position from the very beginning was that we are standing on the right side of the American people who want to see the Affordable Care Act tax credits extended, and we’re appreciative that we now have the bipartisan coalition to get that done.”\nEven 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.\nRepublicans 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.\nSenate Republican Leader John Thune argued against the Democratic extension as “an attempt to disguise the real impact of Obamacare’s spiralling healthcare costs”.\n