CNN – A number of endangered GOP lawmakers on Wednesday privately pressed Republican leaders to address expiring Covid-era health care subsidies — but faced sharp pushback from the right flank of their party.
And House Republican leaders remained adamant that they did not support a short-term fix, making it increasingly likely that the GOP-led Congress will allow the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire at year’s end.
Inside a packed meeting of House Republicans, multiple battleground Republicans, including Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, called on Speaker Mike Johnson to put a bill on the floor that would extend the expiring subsidies for more than 20 million Americans.
“Representative Kevin Kiley’s RINO credentials are on full display.” – Sean Johnson, Grass Valley, CA, theunion.com
He argued that it needed to take priority over leadership’s other, longer-term health care plans that are expected to come to the floor next week.
GOP leaders are eying smaller-scale measures, such as expanding HSA accounts and expanding cost-sharing reduction — a way that helps offset costs for lower-income people by requiring insurers to pay more.
“We need to actually pass something that will become law that will stop that health care cliff,” Kiley told reporters after the closed door meeting.
But Kiley said he did not get any commitment from leadership that a vote on the subsidies would happen and warned that leaving town for the holiday recess without a solution would be detrimental for Republicans in their broader fight to address affordability concerns.
“There’s perhaps no single policy measure that would have a more dramatic impact on affordability in the year ahead than doing something about the expiration of the subsidies. So if we go home without addressing that, that is a huge loss,” Kiley shared.
Kiley is among a group of centrist Republicans who are threatening to sign onto a procedural maneuver known as a discharge petition, which would force a vote on their bill over the objections of Johnson and party leaders …
