Four Republicans serving in the United States House of Representatives broke with party leadership Wednesday to sign onto a Democrat-led petition forcing a vote on extending the pandemic-era health insurance subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.
Because the petition was able to meet the minimum signature threshold, it is now guaranteed that the chamber will at some point hold a vote on the proposed three-year extension in early 2026.
Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan Jr., and Ryan Mackenzie, all of Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler of New York signed onto the petition, allowing it to achieve the number of signatories necessary to ensure a vote would be taken.
This petition was sponsored by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and backed by every House Democrat.
National reporting indicates that all four of the Republican lawmakers to sign onto the petition represent swing districts and will likely be competitive reelection bids.
Known as a discharge petition, this legislative move allows a simple majority of lawmakers to override opposition from House leadership to trigger a vote on the chamber floor.
This reportedly comes after the group of GOP lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to get the extension added to a larger healthcare policy bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson explained Tuesday that negotiations over the amendment were conducted “in good faith” but that a compromise ultimately did not come to fruition.
The House is expected to vote as soon as Wednesday evening on this legislation, absent the proposed subsidy extension.
“We have worked for months to craft a two-party solution to address these expiring health care credits,” Rep. Fitzpatrick said in a statement regarding his decision to sign the discharge petition. “Our only request was a floor vote on this compromise, so that the American people’s voice could be heard on this issue. That request was rejected.”
“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,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.”
Last week, the Senate voted down a similar three-year extension of the soon-expiring ACA subsidies, likely paving a difficult path forward for the House proposal should it make it out of the chamber.
That said, four Republican senators, including Sen. Susan Collins (R), crossed party lines to join their Democratic colleagues in support of the extension.
Sen. Collins also voted for the Republicans’ proposal, explaining that “neither is the perfect solution to this problem.”
While she described the GOP bill as “contain[ing] many important provisions that ought to be considered in a longer-term reform,” she still expressed a clear desire for something to be done now about the soon-to-expire subsidies.
“My votes today reflect my understanding that two things can be true at once: the Affordable Care Act has proven itself to be unaffordable; it is a broken system that must be fixed—and it cannot be fixed overnight,” she concluded. “The families that rely on it now, however, cannot be left facing huge premium increases with inadequate assistance.”
[RELATED: How Maine’s Senators Voted on the Two Major Health Care Proposals Before the Chamber This Week]
Known as the enhanced premium tax credit (EPTC), this program gives many Americans access to free or discounted monthly premiums if they purchase their insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace.
Right now, about 85 percent of the roughly 61,000 Mainers who get their insurance through the ACA marketplace take advantage of the EPTC.
Absent Congressional action, the 2021 expansion of this credit — approved as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and allowed those who otherwise would have fallen outside the income eligibility requirements to pay a discounted premium — will lapse.
Originally, Americans were only eligible for a tax credit if they earned between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level, equal in 2025 to between $15,650 and $62,600 for a single-person household. This range increases to between $32,150 and $128,600 for a family of four.
Under the EPTC, however, anyone making above this threshold would have their monthly health insurance premium capped at 8.5 percent of their income.
The EPTC also eliminated or nearly eliminated premiums for those making between 100 percent and 150 percent of the federal poverty line.
The cap on premium contribution levels were also lowered for recipients at all income levels.
Although this expansion was initially set to expire at the end of 2022, Congress extended the EPTC in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), establishing a new expiry date at the end of 2025.
According to a December 2024 publication from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the original version of the PTC — which conditioned eligibility on household income — will remain in place regardless of whether or not federal lawmakers extend the EPTC.
