Congress is driving toward a showdown with the looming Obamacare cliff at the center of the fight. It’s shaping up to be a big test for leaders in both parties.
GOP leadership won’t touch the issue in their CR this week, though they’ve expressed some openness to discussing extending the enhanced tax credits that expire at year’s end. But Democrats are demanding that the stopgap funding bill address health care now.
There are multiple factors that could force the fight at the Sept. 30 deadline. Senate Democrats are under intense pressure politically to show they’ll battle Republicans. There could also be a policy fallout from a delay.
CBO has estimated that 1.5 million more people would go uninsured if Congress permanently extends the tax credits on Dec. 31 compared to an earlier enactment date, according to analysis provided to House Democratic leadership and reviewed by Punchbowl News.
The nonpartisan office compared the impact of a permanent extension on a timeline that would allow insurers to account for it when setting premiums versus a Dec. 31 passage. CBO said the average benchmark premium would be about 4% higher in 2026 if Congress waits that long. An extension would also cost $10 billion less, per the analysis.
That’s all assuming there’s a permanent extension of the subsidies, which is highly unlikely. But it indicates the timing could have a real impact.
People will start getting notices in a few weeks about new premiums, and open enrollment begins Nov. 1.
Democrats’ posture. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) are holding a news conference this morning on the Obamacare cliff, a sign Democrats are working to ramp up pressure this week.
Baldwin said the subsidies are “very time sensitive in terms of all health insurance costs.”
“We need to have a short-term CR that allows us to finish the appropriations process, pass the bills we were just talking about, and restore some of the damage done in the big, ugly bill to health care,” Baldwin said.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told us there’s an urgency to get something done quickly.
“We’ve already got health clinics closing in Virginia,” Warner said. “This is going to be a disaster. And I think many of my Republican [colleagues] in their heart know it is.”
GOP status. Republicans, meanwhile, are all over the map on this issue.
A group of Senate Republicans is working on a proposal to extend the Obamacare subsidies in some form. Politico first reported on the effort.
There’s been growing interest among GOP senators for the last few months in addressing the cliff, along with a push from vulnerable House Republicans. Yet it’s still not an easy compromise for Republicans, many of whom oppose the subsidies.
