The United States Capitol in Washington, DC, October 1, 2025 (Photo: Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, who have been struggling to find a way to address rising health insurance costs, will face a majority vote in early 2026 on Democrats’ plan to extend enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for another three years.
A House vote on the legislation will be required after a handful of moderate Republicans signed onto a discharge petition Wednesday morning. Their opposition to leadership sent a forceful message that they are frustrated with majoritarian politics and rising health care costs for their constituents.
After a series of morning floor votes in which he was seen in a heated exchange with Republican Mike Lawler, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, said they “just had intense fellowship” and “everything was fine.”
Lawler is one of four centrist Republicans who signed a discharge petition, pushing the 218 threshold to force a vote on the bill.
“As we always do, we are working on very complex issues,” Johnson said. “Everyone is working on ideas and we are keeping the conversation productive.”
The speaker also offered his own defense, claiming he had “not lost control of the House.”
There was chaos and intra-party divisions in the chamber following the government shutdown, when Johnson decided to send lawmakers home for almost two months.
“We have the smallest majority in the history of the United States,” Johnson said. “These are not normal times – there are processes and procedures in the House that are less frequently used when there is a larger majority, and when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree with something, you don’t have to deal with it, but when you have a razor-thin margin, as we do, then all the procedures that are written in the book, as people think, are on the table, and that is the difference.”
The Senate’s approach
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he has not yet decided whether to put the House Democrats’ bill on the floor if it passes and passes.
“Well, we’ll see. I mean, of course we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Thune said. “Even if they get enough signatures, I doubt they will vote on it this week.”
Thune said the discharge petition for the three-year extension of ACA tax credits is much different than the discharge petition that forced a House vote on the bill requiring the release of Epstein’s records. The files on Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges, have become a target of Congress and victims in recent months.
“It passed almost unanimously here, 427 to 1,” Thune said.
“I assume this discharge petition will be a very, probably, partisan vote.”
Senate I voted earlier this month on Democrats’ three-year ACA tax relief legislation, which Thune agreed to in order to get enough Democratic votes to end the government shutdown. This bill, identical to the House of Representatives version, did not receive the 60 votes necessary for adoption by a 51-48 majority.
Both chambers will leave the Capitol later this week for a two-week winter break and will not return to work until the week of Jan. 5.
Frustration shines through
GOP leaders are scheduled to vote on their own health care bill on Wednesday in the House after the House approved a rule to begin debate on the legislation by a 213-209 majority.
The bill that Johnson released on Friday eveningdoes not extend the ACA’s enhanced marketplace tax breaks that Democrats originally created during the coronavirus pandemic. The improved credits will end at the end of this month.
Johnson made his decision on Tuesday not allow House to discuss any amendments to the bill, preventing moderate Republicans from presenting their bipartisan proposal to expand ACA marketplace tax credits with modifications.
This led to considerable frustration, and on Wednesday morning, Pennsylvania Republican Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, along with Lawler of New York, signed the Democrats’ discharge petition, obtaining the 218 signatures needed to force a majority vote in that chamber.
“We have been working for months with both parties, in both chambers, and with the White House, all in good faith, to balance all shares and offer a responsible bridge that successfully moved the needle,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
“Our only request was for a floor vote on this compromise so that the voice of the American people could be heard on this issue,” Fitzpatrick added. “That request was denied. Subsequently, at the request of House leadership, my colleagues and I filed multiple amendments and testified extensively on those amendments. House leadership then chose to reject each of those amendments. As I have said many times, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension with no reforms is a policy of a complete sunset with no bridge. Unfortunately, it was House leadership themselves who forced this outcome.”
Jeffries presented the petition
The application for dismissalintroduced last month by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, was just below the number of signatures needed for weeks as centrist Republicans tried to negotiate a deal that could become law.
When the chaos was interrupted by the moderates’ signatures, a House vote was called, but any legislation must also pass the Senate and receive President Donald Trump’s signature.
Without a bill extending the ACA’s enhanced marketplace subsidies, approximately 22 million Americans will see their health insurance premiums skyrocket by thousands of dollars next year if they can fit the cost raise into their budgets.
