Time is running out for Congress to act.
The Senate failed to get anywhere on the health care issue this week. Now it’s the House’s turn to show what it can do.
Speaker Mike Johnson is in a last-minute sprint to develop a Republican alternative, as his party refuses to extend tax subsidies for those who buy policies through the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, which are expiring at the end of the year. Those subsidies help lower the cost of coverage.
Johnson, R-La., huddled behind closed doors Friday morning — as he did days earlier this week — working to assemble a package for consideration as the House focuses the final days of its 2025 work on health care.
“We’re making final decisions,” said Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. “We have a couple more conversations to have, but we’re getting close.”
Time is running out for Congress to act. Democrats engineered the longest federal government shutdown ever this fall in a failed effort to force Republicans to the negotiating table on health care. But after promising votes, the Senate failed this week to advance both a Republican health care plan and the Democratic-offered bill to extend the tax credits for three years.
Now, with just days to go, Congress is about to wrap up its work with no solution in sight.
President Donald Trump, speaking at a holiday party at the White House, said he believes Republicans are going to figure out a better plan than Obamacare — something he has promised for years — but he offered few details beyond his idea for providing Americans with stipends to help buy insurance.
“I really believe we can work on healthcare together and come up with something that’s going to be much better, much less expensive for the people, less expensive for our nation,” Trump said at Thursday night’s reception.
The president touted his proposal for sending money directly to Americans to help offset the costs of health care policies, rather than extending the tax credits for those buying policies through Obamacare.
