Senate fails to advance bills to avert massive Obamacare premiums hike for millions of Americans
Senators on Capitol Hill failed to advance two pieces of legislation on Thursday that would have addressed the imminent spiking of healthcare costs for millions of Americans.
The two proposals included a Republican plan that would have morphed expiring federal subsidies that currently address those annual premium costs into payments to health savings accounts (HSAs) for Americans seeking to buy insurance as well as a Democratic plan that would have extended those subsidies for two years.
The Democratic proposal received several votes from Republicans who crossed the line to support it, including Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan. Both plans ultimately failed to break the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Senators who spoke to reporters around the votes, particularly on the Democratic side, sounded frustrated that Republicans had left the issue until the very last minute.
“There was a time, months ago, to negotiate whether there were some tweaks that needed to be made,” said a dismissive Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), speaking to a small gaggle on Thursday.
“All Republicans are proposing right now is a meaningless way to solve their political problem. They’re really not interested in solving the health care crisis.”
The grumblings were far from isolated to the Democratic side.
“For God’s sake of living, we can’t wait until 10 days before the end of the year and then repair healthcare,” complained Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia.
Federal subsidies for Obamacare exchange plans passed under the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 under Joe Biden will expire at the end of the year. Already, thousands of Americans have received notifications that the annual premiums for plans they purchased off of the public exchanges will jump by as much as 100% or more in some cases next year.
The House and Senate have debated fixes for months, and Democrats sought to tie a clean extension of the subsidies for two years to their votes to end a federal government shutdown that lasted more than a month. Their efforts did not yield success, and eventually members of the party’s caucus in the Senate backed down.
Now, the end of those subsidies (and the immediate effects of the cost increases) is just days away, with Congress seemingly little closer to coming to an agreement.
The White House meekly pushed for a plan that would include a two-year subsidy extension before the Thanksgiving holiday, but the sheer volume of Republican resistance in the House forced the president to backtrack, according to reports.
Now, a handful of Republicans remain on board with a clean extension of the subsidies. There is greater, but still reduced, appetite among the GOP for an extension of the subsidies with new income caps. But the president himself continues to push for the subsidies to be made into direct payments to consumers (such as via HSAs), which does not appear to have the numbers to pass either chamber.
As Thursday’s votes ended, it looked increasingly likely that cutting a deal with Democrats could be a path forward for Republicans who are desperate to avert the cost hikes from hitting at the beginning of what already looks to be a bruising midterm year.
