Group of House Republicans defy leadership and join Democrats to force ACA vote
The subsidies are still likely to end before the deadline.
A group of moderate House Republicans defied House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday and signed off on a measure that would force a vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits.
The revolt came after Johnson blocked a vote on the ACA subsidies on Tuesday. The credits are set to expire on December 31 just as insurance premiums are expected to skyrocket in 2026, creating a political liability for lawmakers up for election in the midterms next year.
“It is political malpractice,” Rep. Mike Lawler, one of the four Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats to force a vote, told Politico on Tuesday in reference to Johnson blocking the vote.
The subsidies are still likely to end before the deadline. The move gives House leadership seven working days to bring it up for a vote. The tax credits are set to expire at year’s end, the House is not in session next week, and lawmakers do not return to Washington until January 6.
Last week, the US Senate rejected two dueling proposals that would have either extended the tax credits or replaced them with federally funded tax-advantaged health savings accounts.
The market-implied odds of the subsides being extended before 2026 is less than 3%, data from Kalshi shows, though traders now peg the odds of an extension before February 2026 at 24%.
The ACA tax credits, which subsidize health insurance plans provided by private insurers, were part of a 2021 COVID-19 relief package passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress.
The subsidies led to a boom in ACA enrollment, with some of the biggest providers of ACA Marketplace plans being companies like Oscar Health, UnitedHealth, Molina Healthcare, and Centene.
