WASHINGTON — Drama unfolded on Capitol Hill Wednesday as four House Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats to force a vote on extending health care subsidies that help over 20 millions of Americans pay for health insurance.
Those four Republicans, Pennsylvania Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, and Rob Bresnahan, along with New York Rep. Mike Lawler in signing onto a discharge petition that, if passed, would extend the current tax credits for three years.
“I have a job to do on behalf of my constituents. We exhausted every effort to find an agreement within our [Republican] conference. If folks chose not to find a path forward, they left us with no option but to sign that three-year discharge. If they don’t want that to pass, then they should be working to find an alternative vehicle now,” Lawler told reporters after members of his own party accused him and the three other Republicans for signing the petition.
Two other discharge petitions had been filed in recent days to try and force a vote on bipartisan legislation to address the expiring tax credits, but without the endorsement of Democratic leadership, neither of them were able to secure the 218 signatures to trigger the vote.
While Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ strategy of holding out on endorsing a bipartisan plan in order to force moderate Republicans to join his effort, it’s now up to Speaker Mike Johnson to actually schedule a vote on the matter, which is unlikely before Congress breaks for the holidays.
“We really are screwed, just to be frank,” said Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif. “It’s going to affect everybody. It’s not just people in my district — that’s the part that I don’t think people understand — because a lot of people are going to be uninsured. They’re going to get sick or they’re still going to go to the hospital — costs are going to go up. So who’s going to pay for that? All of us will in our insurance.”
Even if Johnson delays the vote until the new year, the House will have to take it up, and it will likely have the votes necessary for passage. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Calif., acknowledged that it’s the Senate that will be the challenge.
“It’s going to be really incumbent on us to ensure that voices are lifted in every state where there is a Republican senator with wobbly knees,” Liccardo told Spectrum News Wednesday. “I think this is going to be hard slogging for several days and weeks.”
Liccardo has been working with Rep Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., on the Fix It Act to keep premiums lower for millions of Americans, while also making tweaks to the program currently in place. Kiley, who now faces a difficult reelection bid due to mid-decade redistricting in California, has been one of the most vocal critics of Republican leadership over the issue of these tax credits.
“I’ve spoken with him repeatedly, and have continued to urge [Johnson] to do the right thing. I have been frustrated with leadership on both sides — with the speaker for refusing to bring any bill to the floor, and with the minority leader for really playing politics on this and not allowing his members to support one of the compromise measures that has had bipartisan support,” Kiley said Wednesday in an interview with Spectrum News.
“Ultimately, I think it’s a failure of leadership on both sides. It goes to show one of the major problems here in the House — which is that a lot of time and energy gets spent trying to blame the other side for problems, as opposed to working together to solve those problems well,” he continued.
Kiley, who did not sign the discharge petition, noted that he is “torn” as to whether he will support the three-year extension when Johnson brings it to the floor.
“My issue with that discharge petition has been that Leader Jeffries on the Democrat side has refused to endorse any of the other compromise proposals, and so that has deprived them of the signatures they need to actually come to the floor, and has instead directed all of his members to go to this one uncompromising proposal that has no bipartisan co authors and that has already failed in the Senate,” he said.
“I’m going to do whatever I think will give us the best chance of stopping this massive increase of premiums for folks,” Kiley added. “So I’m still looking at that question.”