A faction of moderate and under-pressure Republicans in the House of Representatives has launched a “long-shot revolt” against their own leadership, attempting to force a vote to extend expiring ObamaCare subsidies that GOP leaders oppose bringing up for a vote, The Hill reports.
The moderates warn that allowing the subsidies to expire will lead to spiking healthcare costs for 22 million people and could cost the Republican party its thin House majority in the midterms.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) filed a discharge petition to bypass leadership and force a vote on a bill that would extend the enhanced subsidies for two years while including new income limits and antifraud measures that enjoy broader support in the GOP.
Fitzpatrick co-leads the bill with several Democrats, and Republicans including Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.), Rob Bresnahan (Pa.), and Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.) have signed on.
Fitzpatrick emphasized the urgency of the situation. “This is personal to a lot of us. These are our friends and our neighbors that are losing sleep over this,” he said. “So we just have no time, no patience, for the BS politics that sometimes consumes this place. This is real life.”
The move came just hours after House Republican leaders announced they would hold a vote next week on a package of health care reforms supported by conservatives, but which pointedly excludes any measure to extend the enhanced subsidies. Centrists argue that while they support the leadership’s planned reforms, those measures “will not help defray the looming premium payment spike.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) expressed the difficult political calculus facing moderates, saying, “This is the right thing to do in the short period of time, if we have to live with the ACA in order to be able to keep people whole…Do I think this issue is worth a couple points in an election? Yeah, I do.”
The discharge petition requires 218 signatures to force a floor vote. However, Democrats are simultaneously pursuing their own petition for a three-year extension without reforms, making it uncertain if Fitzpatrick’s bipartisan effort will reach the required majority before the subsidies expire.
CBS News reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters after Fitzpatrick filed the discharge petition that an extension does not have the support of the majority of the conference.
“I understand the concerns that they have. I’m very sympathetic to that. We have spent many, many hours trying to find a way out of the conundrum that we’re in, with regard to those extensions,” Johnson said. “We just can’t get Republican votes on that for lots of reasons, not enough of them.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) challenged the leadership’s approach, arguing, “If you know people don’t like it, they can vote no. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. You put it on the floor and you vote.”
The GOP leadership plan to present their own bill next week although details remain thin.