The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in the U.S. House will face a floor vote in early 2026 on Democrats’ plan to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits for three more years, after passing their own legislation Wednesday night that has little chance of a future in the Senate and does not address the tax credits.

The House vote on that legislation will be required after a handful of moderate Republicans signed on to a discharge petition Wednesday morning. Their dissent with leadership sent a strong signal they are frustrated with the majority’s policies and the rising cost of health care for their constituents. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after a morning vote series on the floor, where he was seen in a heated exchange with Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, that the two “just had some intense fellowship” and “it’s all good.”

Lawler is one of the four centrist Republicans who signed the discharge petition, putting it over the threshold of 218 to force a vote on the legislation. 

“We’re working through very complex issues as we do here all the time,” Johnson said. “Everybody’s working towards ideas — we’re keeping the productive conversation going.” 

The speaker also mounted his own defense, saying he has “not lost control of the House.”

That chamber has seen chaos and intraparty divides in the aftermath of the government shutdown, when Johnson opted to send lawmakers home for nearly two months. 

“We have the smallest majority in U.S. history,” Johnson said. “These are not normal times — there are processes and procedures in the House that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities, and when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you don’t have to deal with it, but when you have a razor-thin margin, as we do, then all the procedures in the book people think are on the table, and that’s the difference.”

Republicans push through ‘extremely modest’ bill

House debate on Republican leaders’ health care bill later in the day was largely along party lines, with members of both parties talking nearly as much about the Affordable Care Act as they did about the policy in the new legislation. 

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said he believes that law, enacted during President Barack Obama’s first term, “has proven to be unaffordable and unsustainable.” 

Guthrie rebuked Democrats for approving the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits during the coronavirus pandemic and scheduling them to expire at the end of this year, leading to the current deadlock in Congress. 

“Democrats leveraged a public health emergency to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars to big health insurance plans to mask the risk of rising unaffordability of coverage,” Guthrie said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., urged Johnson to put the three-year ACA extension bill up for a vote this week, instead of in the new year. 

“Republicans need to bring the Affordable Care Act tax credit extension bill to the floor today,” Jeffries said. “Under no circumstances should we leave this Capitol this week, before voting on an extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credit bill that we know will pass.” 

California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, one of the centrists looking for bipartisan solutions on the expiring tax credits, expressed dismay at how debate on health care costs has been handled during the past few months by leaders in both political parties. 

“This whole issue encapsulates what is wrong with this institution, where party leaders focus most of their time and energy on trying to blame problems on the other side rather than trying to solve those problems,” Kiley said. 

The House Republican bill, he said, is “extremely modest and it has no chance of becoming law because it was hastily thrown together without, apparently, any bipartisan input when bipartisan support is necessary to pass any measure like this.”

“What are we supposed to tell these folks? ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s Obama’s fault.’ Or, ‘Oh no don’t worry, we did a show vote on this Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act.’ Is that going to be any consolation?” Kiley said. 

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone called the House GOP bill a “sham” and said without a vote to extend the expiring ACA tax credits millions of Americans will have to decide if they can afford health insurance coverage. 

“They will see prices double, triple and even quadruple,” Pallone said. “It will leave millions with the difficult decision of going without coverage because they simply cannot afford rising costs.”

The House voted 216-211 to approve the Republican health care bill, sending it to the Senate, where it’s highly unlikely it would get the bipartisan support needed to advance without significant revision. 

Senate approach

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said earlier in the day he hadn’t yet decided whether to put the House Democrats’ bill on the floor if it is passed and arrives. 

“Well, we’ll see. I mean, we obviously will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Thune said. “Even if they have a sufficient number of signatures, I doubt they vote on it this week.”

Thune said the discharge petition on the three-year ACA tax credits extension is far different from the discharge petition that forced a House floor vote on a bill to require the release of the Epstein files. Files related to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges, have become a target of Congress and victims in recent months.

“That came over here pretty much unanimously, 427 to 1,” Thune said. 
“And my assumption is this discharge petition is going to be a very, probably, partisan vote.”

The Senate voted earlier this month on Democrats’ three-year ACA tax credits legislation, a move that Thune agreed to in order to get enough Democratic votes to end the government shutdown. That bill, which is identical to the House version, was unable to get the 60 votes needed to advance on a 51-48 vote. 

Both chambers are set to leave Capitol Hill later this week for their two-week winter break and won’t return to work until the week of Jan. 5. 

‘We have to do something’ 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said she sees the House discharge petition reaching the 218-signature threshold as “constructive.” 

The New Hampshire Democrat said “bipartisan, bicameral talks continue that are also constructive, so hopefully we can see some movement.” 

Though she is “hopeful” for a deal in January, Shaheen said “obviously, there’s a lot that needs to happen in order to get something done, but people need relief,” adding that “people in both houses and on both sides of the aisle are hearing from constituents that they want to see something done.” 

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley — one of four Republicans who voted with Democrats to advance the three-year extension plan — reiterated his calls for lawmakers to take action to address the looming premium spikes. 

“I just think we have to do something on the cost of premiums, and I’m not locked into any one thing,” he said, acknowledging that he voted for both Democrats’ proposal and his GOP colleagues’ alternative bill. That effort also failed, at 51-48, to garner the 60 votes needed to move forward.  

“I mean, advance any solution — that’s my view, but what I think we should not do is just sit back and say, ‘Well, you know, good luck. We wish you all the best.’” 

Frustration breaks through

The House Republican bill, which Johnson released Friday evening, doesn’t extend the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits.

It would require Pharmacy Benefit Managers “to provide employers with detailed data on prescription drug spending, rebates, spread pricing, and formulary decisions—empowering plans and workers with the transparency they deserve,” according to a summary in Johnson’s release. 

Starting in 2027, the legislation would appropriate funding for cost sharing reduction payments that the summary said would reduce health insurance premiums and stabilize the individual market. 

Johnson decided Tuesday not to allow the House to debate any amendments to the bill, blocking moderate Republicans from having their bipartisan proposal to extend the ACA marketplace tax credits with modifications taken up. 

That led to considerable frustration, and Wednesday morning, Pennsylvania Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, along with New York’s Lawler, signed the Democrats’ discharge petition, putting it at the 218 signatures needed to force a floor vote in that chamber. 

“We’ve worked for months with both parties, in both chambers, and with the White House, all in good faith, to balance all equities and offer a responsible bridge that successfully threaded the needle,” Fitzpatrick wrote in a statement.   

“Our only request was a Floor vote on this compromise, so that the American People’s voice could be heard on this issue,” Fitzpatrick added. “That request was rejected. Then, at the request of House leadership I, along with my colleagues, filed multiple amendments, and testified at length to those amendments. House leadership then decided to reject every single one of these amendments. As I’ve stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge. Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.”

Jeffries introduced petition

The discharge petition, introduced last month by House Democratic Leader  Jeffries, sat just below the signatures needed for weeks as centrist Republicans tried to broker a deal that could become law. 

When that logjam broke with the moderates’ signatures, it set up a House floor vote, but any legislation must move through the Senate as well and gain President Donald Trump’s signature. 

Without a law to extend the enhanced ACA marketplace subsidies, roughly 22 million Americans will see their health insurance premiums spike by thousands of dollars next year, if they can fit the rise in costs into their budgets.