Senate Democrats opt for partisan vote on a 3-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies

Senate Democrats plan to use their GOP-promised health care vote next week to try to advance a clean three-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies because they say no bipartisan path is available.

The Senate will take up the proposal next Thursday, but it cannot get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Democrats said Republicans never offered them an alternative that could. 

“They couldn’t propose something that was concrete,” said Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Democrat, who was involved in bipartisan talks. 

The base subsidies, known as Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, do not expire. But Democrats’ COVID-era expansion that extended the benefits to families earning more than 400% of the federal poverty level and made them more generous across the board will sunset on Dec. 31. 

Senate Democrats’ bill would renew that expansion for another three years, the same length as their 2022 Inflation Reduction Act extension of the initially temporary pandemic policy. 

“This is the only solution to avoid the Jan. 1 cliff, plain and simple,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.

House Democrats have also proposed a clean three-year extension of the expanded subsidies and launched a discharge petition to force a vote, but they need four Republicans to sign it and have none. 

Mr. Schumer said all 47 Senate Democrats will vote for the three-year extension and Republicans should too if they want to prevent millions of Americans who buy health insurance from the Obamacare exchanges from having to pay more than double, on average, for their premiums next year. 

“If Republicans block our bill, there’s no do-over,” he said. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, agreed to give Democrats a vote on a health care plan of their choosing in exchange for eight of them joining Republicans in voting to reopen the government last month after a record 43-day shutdown. 

He said Democrats’ proposing a clean three-year extension suggests they’re not serious about a solution, citing Republicans’ willingness to entertain an extension with “reforms” that address waste, fraud and abuse. 

There was some effort to come up with a bipartisan bill, but it quickly fell apart. 

Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and was one of the eight to support the shutdown-ending deal, said the impasse stems from Republicans insisting on Hyde Amendment language that would block the subsidies from being used to pay for health insurance plans that cover abortion. 

“That’s just a nonstarter for the Democrats,” he said. 

Republicans may offer their own plan for a vote alongside the Democrats’ bill.

GOP members have discussed diverting the government money that would otherwise be spent on the extra Obamacare subsidies to Health Savings Accounts, but they have yet to agree on all the details of a plan.