News: Republican senators have been privately lobbying President Donald Trump to support a limited short-term extension of Obamacare subsidies, arguing it would save the GOP from a 2026 drubbing and buy time for Congress to pass a longer-term health care plan that mirrors the president’s preferences.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) has spoken with the president several times this week to pitch the idea, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Britt and other GOP senators, some with different views on the subject, were scheduled to meet with Trump on Thursday, but we’re told the meeting was canceled for unrelated reasons.
The pitch comes as senators are staring down a mid-December deadline to have a bill ready for floor action — a commitment Senate Majority Leader John Thune made as part of negotiations to end the government shutdown.
Trump’s involvement is critical to secure enough GOP support in both chambers for any health care bill, especially one that renews an Obamacare policy. The effort to sway Trump on a two-step process also highlights the urgency many Republicans feel about finding a solution to address the year-end cliff, rather than turning the floor votes into doomed-to-fail messaging exercises.
“I see the political shop on the Democratic side just churning up all the very sympathetic stories that are gonna result if we don’t come up with a reasonable plan,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned.
A short-term extension of the Obamacare subsidies could mean one, two or even three years, with strict eligibility crackdowns, such as income caps and anti-fraud provisions. A Trump-led push would provide political cover for vulnerable Republicans; it would also save Thune from having to deal with a divided conference.
Failing to address the immediate cliff would make it impossible for Republicans to negotiate a longer-term plan, Britt and others have argued to Trump. Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), for example, have lots of ideas.
Scott, who unveiled an Obamacare fix on Thursday, was on the invite list for the White House meeting. And Cassidy joined us on Fly Out Day — more on that in a bit.
The challenges. There are significant hurdles to getting this done. When senators return from the Thanksgiving recess, they’ll have just two weeks to hold a vote — though Thune could extend the deadline if a deal is close.
Complicating matters further, Trump has gone on tirades against the Obamacare subsidies recently, and Republicans have mimicked his posture.
“I’m not opposed to bipartisan deals. The problem is, Obamacare was never a bipartisan deal. Democrats seem to be saying you need to swallow this partisan bill that was sold under false pretenses,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told us. “That’s unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats seem to be hardening their position and downplaying the chances of securing enough GOP votes for even a pared-back Obamacare subsidy extension.
“If they don’t have the votes, then what are we even doing here?” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said. “The burden is on them to demonstrate that they can help us enact something. I’m not super interested in six [Republicans] flopping around on the deck pretending they’re gonna save [Obamacare].”
Many Republicans are now questioning whether there’d even be a sufficient number of Democratic votes, noting that the party’s leaders are no longer calling for bipartisan meetings with Trump — a tactic they used throughout the shutdown to portray Republicans as intransigent.
At the townhouse. During his appearance on Fly Out Day, Cassidy expressed confidence that Democrats could be interested in crafting a longer-term plan to help cut health care costs, though some Republicans want to use the party-line reconciliation process.
But Cassidy is cognizant that the political dynamics need to shift if Congress is going to act before the end of the year.
“People have to come out of their ‘Oh, I’m going to oppose it because the other side has proposed it,’” said Cassidy, who chairs the Senate HELP Committee. “They have to come out of that mindset.”
As we’ve reported, some Republican senators are already urging their leadership to allow a “side-by-side” vote on a GOP-favored health care bill. While this would provide political cover for vulnerable Republicans, it would essentially guarantee that there won’t be 60 votes for either proposal.
The House. There’s still intense resistance among House Republicans to the Obamacare subsidies. House Republicans who want to extend them are throwing everything at the wall but getting increasingly desperate for a solution.
“I’m from Virginia, where politically there’s a lot going on these days and the elections didn’t turn out as we would want them,” Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) told us. “And I know health care is an issue that’s important to people in my district.”
A bipartisan group met on Wednesday and is planning to meet virtually with senators over the Thanksgiving recess, Kiggans said.
GOP members of the Problem Solvers Caucus discussed health care options at a Thursday night dinner. Co-chairs Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) have been keeping in touch with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
News: Suozzi and Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) are proposing a new bill that would extend the subsidies for two years with added limits.
The bill would add a new income cap, extending the enhanced credits for families of four earning less than $200,000 per year and phasing them out for families of four earning between $200,000 and $300,000.
One other idea under discussion is a one-year subsidy extension with income caps and fraud-prevention changes, paired with a commission to negotiate a longer-term solution next year.
But there’s still no sign House GOP leaders would put a bill on the floor. And there’s very little time left for a discharge petition.
