House GOP's health care week goes sideways

IN THIS EDITION

House GOP’s health care week goes awry

Is a Jan. 30 shutdown in the cards?

The Vault: Tribal advocates push for prediction market crackdown

Dems probe DOJ and Bondi’s brother

Barr rolls out 100-plus House GOP endorsements for Senate run

THE TOP

House GOP’s health care week goes awry

Happy Tuesday morning.

This week — the last of the legislative year — was designed to give House Republicans a way to push back on Democratic attacks that they’re indifferent to skyrocketing health care costs hitting millions of Americans.

Instead, the House GOP leadership has facilitated an untimely — and particularly nasty — intraparty brawl, pitting moderates against Republican Party leaders and further strengthening Democrats’ political hand as the Obamacare cliff looms.

Speaker Mike Johnson and his inner circle are pushing moderate Republicans like Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), David Valadao (Calif.) and Jen Kiggans (Va.) into the arms of Democrats, as the House Republican leadership refuses to allow the centrists a vote on extending the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies.

During a closed GOP leadership meeting Monday, top House Republicans ruled out giving the moderates a waiver to pursue their amendment without steep budgetary offsets. No one in the room pushed back, according to multiple sources present.

Without an Obamacare subsidies extension, the Republican leadership is simply allowing House members another chance to vote on a suite of policies on which they’ve previously voted.

The GOP package this week is effectively warmed over health care provisions that the Senate has already rejected. Rank-and-file Republicans don’t even get the benefit of politically jamming Democrats, who’ve voted against these policies once and will gladly vote against them again.

The House GOP leadership’s reason for snubbing the majority-making moderates: party rules mandate that the amendment needs to be offset by spending cuts or other savings. Republican leaders even suggested to the group of moderates that they sequester Medicare funding to help pay for the subsidies. The bottom line is the pay-fors would’ve made the amendment unpalatable for the Republican centrists.

It’s now possible that some Republican moderates will sign onto House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition. Jeffries’ petition — which already has 214 Democratic signatures — forces a vote on a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies. This position was once anathema to every single House Republican.

However, Kiggans ruled out signing Jeffries’ petition, according to a source familiar with her thinking. That takes one potential GOP backer off the table, but it’s still a big shift that Kiggans felt the need to consider and say no to this route.

Advantage Democrats. By refusing an amendment vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies, consider the political advantage Republicans have delivered to the Democrats.

If four Republicans sign Jeffries’ discharge petition to extend the ACA subsidies, Democrats have exacted the precise policy win they’ve been seeking, even if that never becomes law.

Alternatively, Jeffries can urge Democrats to sign Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s (D-N.J.) petition for a one-year extension with income caps. This would give Democrats a modest policy win — a shorter-term extension of the subsidies — and place the new expiration date smack dab in the middle of an election year. Gottheimer’s petition currently has 40 signatures.

Either way, Congress will go over the Obamacare cliff and allow the boosted tax credits to lapse Dec. 31. That will raise health care costs for millions of Americans nationally. Politically, it’s Republicans who will take the hit.

Two flashpoints today:

1) The House Republican Conference will meet at 9 a.m. We’ll be watching to see if there are any flare-ups with moderates sounding off about the GOP leadership’s unwillingness to give them a vote on the Obamacare subsidies. We spoke to several moderates on Monday evening who were quite worked up about this decision

2) The House GOP moderates are expected to go to the Rules Committee this afternoon at 2 p.m. in a bid to get floor consideration for their Obamacare subsidies amendment. The speaker-controlled panel will almost certainly reject that request, infuriating the centrists and pushing them toward the discharge petition.

For what it’s worth, the GOP moderates still plan to vote for the underlying Republican health care bill even if it doesn’t include the Obamacare subsidy extension.

The Senate re-enters the chat. A bipartisan and ideologically diverse group of more than 20 senators met for nearly two hours in the Capitol late Monday. This comes after the Senate rejected extending the Obamacare subsidies last week.

The senators discussed a possible agreement revolving around a proposal from Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) to extend the Obamacare subsidies for two years with income caps and other reforms.

Senators from both parties emerged from the meeting exuding a positive attitude about the outlook for a deal in January — which is after the Obamacare subsidies expire. Some even mused about releasing a framework this week for a potential compromise.

Of course, a deal is unlikely. And the Hyde Amendment remains the biggest obstacle to an agreement that can get 60 votes.

“There has never been a proposal on health care that Republicans have supported that allowed for taxpayer dollars to be used for abortion purposes,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said. “That is still a major issue.”

At the same time, allowing the Obamacare subsidies to expire without a replacement could be politically treacherous for Republicans.

“This is a really serious issue for great Alaskans who are going off this cliff through no fault of their own,” added Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who’s up for reelection in 2026.

— Jake Sherman, Laura Weiss, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio

Don’t miss: The final Tech Quarterly special edition of 2025 comes out today. We take a look at the artificial intelligence campaign effort heading into the 2026 election. Plus, where things stand on kids online safety bills. Check your inboxes and our website later this morning for more.

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FUNDING FIGHT

Is a Jan. 30 shutdown in the cards?

Congress has just 45 days to avert a partial government shutdown against the backdrop of a looming health care crisis and congressional paralysis when it comes to passing another FY2026 funding package.

It’s the perfect storm for another high-profile funding fight that comes on the heels of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Spending standstill. Senate Republicans are mired in a bitter feud between appropriators and fiscal hawks over the inclusion of earmarks in the funding bills that passed out of committee.

The latter group is standing in the way of a funding package that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his leadership team are desperately trying to advance before Christmas.

“The options aren’t good — do you want a shutdown? CR? Omni[bus]? None of those are options that most of our folks want to have to deal with,” Thune told us.

GOP leaders are also worried that their party’s dysfunction will only embolden Democrats to put up another fight over government funding — whether the issue is health care or something else entirely.

Health care. A key factor is how the Jan. 1 expiration of Obamacare enhanced premium tax credits factors into Senate Democrats’ posture over the Jan. 30 government funding deadline.

Senate Democrats are split into two camps on the issue: Progressives who want to make Republicans own the resulting health care premium hikes, and those Democrats who want to cut a deal with the GOP. Many in the latter group were among the Senate Democrats who voted with Republicans to end the recent shutdown.

Progressives especially have no interest in helping “bail out” Republicans.

“There’s not gonna be a deal before then. It’s not even a theoretical,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said. “That’s exactly the point. That’s what [Republicans] wanted, which is skyrocketing costs for the American people.”

“Maybe Republicans will miraculously develop some perceptiveness about public opinion. Be realistic,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) quipped.

Kim’s and Blumenthal’s comments echo Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who seemed to cast doubt on the prospects of a bipartisan deal after last week’s failed votes on dueling partisan health care proposals. Yet many of Schumer’s Democrats are still participating in cross-aisle discussions on some kind of Obamacare subsidies extension.

Deal or no deal? Senators involved in Monday’s meeting want to ensure that a potential health care deal doesn’t become ensnared in the funding fight in a way that dooms both.

“The goal is to work independently of [the funding deadline],” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), an appropriator. “I think you’ve got a lot of people that have come together in good faith that want to ensure a pathway forward.”

Keeping the two issues separate is also important for the Democrats who want a bipartisan deal.

“It’s perilously close to something called legislating, which used to be common in the Senate and hasn’t been in a long time,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin said after the meeting.

But most Democrats are comfortable continuing to hammer Republicans over what could be a major vulnerability for the GOP in the midterms, lowering the chances of an agreement.

“People will have had their [health care] bills increase, it’ll certainly be on people’s minds,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said.

— Andrew Desiderio and Max Cohen

OVERSIGHT WATCH

Dems probe DOJ and Bondi’s brother

News: Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Dave Min (D-Calif.) are leading an effort looking into whether the Department of Justice improperly handled cases involving Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother, Brad Bondi.

In a letter to Bondi, the Democrats claim there’s “a troubling pattern” of “repeated interventions or dismissals in cases involving Mr. Bradley Bondi — Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother — that consistently favors his clients.”

Brad Bondi is the co-chair of the investigations and white collar defense practice at Paul Hastings.

The letter argues that a number of decisions taken by the Justice Department “call into question whether the DOJ has properly implemented firewalls and screening procedures to separate Attorney General Bondi from her brother.”

The letter cites four instances involving Brad Bondi’s clients: Cruise Lines Int’l Ass’n v. Hawai’i, U.S. v. Carolina Amesty, U.S. v. Sidarth Chakraverty and the pardon of Trevor Milton.

Democrats allege in these situations that Bondi’s clients received favorable treatment. Reporting from this summer reveals how the DOJ dropped charges in the Amesty and Chakraverty cases after Brad Bondi joined the legal teams of the defendants.

Milton, who was pardoned in March, said that while Brad Bondi was one of his lawyers, the attorney general’s brother didn’t work on the pardon application.

The Democrats are asking the DOJ to provide internal communications on whether any firewall protections were discussed. Read the full letter here.

It’s unlikely Democrats will get much cooperation here on the Hill given Republicans control all levers of power in Washington.

— Max Cohen

KENTUCKY WATCH

Barr rolls out 100-plus House GOP endorsements for Senate run

News: More than 100 House Republicans are backing Rep. Andy Barr’s (R-Ky.) Kentucky Senate campaign. Barr’s lengthy list of new endorsers includes multiple committee chairs and many close allies of President Donald Trump.

Barr is running against businessman Nate Morris and former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron for the GOP nomination in the deep-red state. Barr has outraised the field and ended Q3 with $6.6 million on hand. But the wild card in the race is that Trump hasn’t endorsed yet.

— Max Cohen

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