News: Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Republican leadership team will meet this morning with the GOP’s “Five Families” to discuss a plan to give moderates a vote on the Obamacare subsidies next week.
The huddle is crucial because it could weigh heavily on how Johnson is able to navigate an incredibly fraught scramble over health care that has splintered his conference.
The Five Families is composed of the leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, the Republican Governance Group, the Main Street Caucus and the Problem Solvers Caucus.
Johnson is planning to put a Republican health care bill on the floor next week with expanded health savings accounts, cost-sharing reductions and association health plans.
The GOP leadership is considering giving moderates an amendment vote on extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies without adding abortion funding restrictions, as we scooped in PM. The amendment would mostly resemble Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s (R-Pa.) bipartisan bill extending the subsidies for two years with reforms.
This could, theoretically, smooth passage of the underlying GOP health care bill — even if the ACA amendment fails.
But first, Johnson and the GOP leadership have to clear the plan with the Five Families, an ideologically diverse group. An extension would infuriate a large swath of Republicans — even more so without new anti-abortion language.
However, House Republican moderates are a thorn in Johnson’s side right now, waging two different discharge petition efforts that include Obamacare subsidies extensions with reforms.
So an amendment vote won’t solve all of Johnson’s problems. First, it might fail. There’s no guarantee Democrats will vote for it. And Fitzpatrick and other lawmakers have discharge petitions forcing clean votes on the subsidies. If the amendment passes, it may sink the underlying bill.
Senate takes a back seat? Most of the bipartisan negotiations have been centralized in the Senate over the past several weeks. But after the chamber’s failed votes on partisan proposals Thursday, key senators now see the House as being in the driver’s seat.
“One of the arguments in the Senate has been: ‘Well, it doesn’t matter if we get anything through the Senate because the House will never take up anything.’ But they’re proving that that’s not the case,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told us on “Fly Out Day.”
As we wrote earlier this week, there are major obstacles to a bipartisan outcome, including the fact that Democrats are getting less interested in cutting a deal and more comfortable using the issue against Republicans in 2026.
“Republicans are responsible for what happens next,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “This is their crisis now, and they’re going to have to answer for it.”
