Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire. But earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees.
"There's a number of Republican and Democratic senators who are seeing what a disaster this will be for families that they represent," Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said on Morning Edition Thursday. "That's the common ground here, and it's a doable thing."
Welch said he joined a bipartisan call Tuesday — first reported by Punchbowl News — in which a handful of senators charted out a possible health care compromise.
"We could extend the credits for a couple of years, we could reform it," Welch said of the call. "You could put an income cap, you could have a copay, you could have penalties on insurers who commit fraud. You actually could introduce some cost saving reductions that have bipartisan support."
But according to Welch, this legislation is only doable with President Trump's blessing.
"It would require that President Trump play a major role in this, because he has such influence over the Republican majority in the House and even in the Senate," Welch said.
Last fall, Republicans and Democrats fought bitterly over the Obamacare subsidy extension, causing a political standoff that led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Trump has remained relatively hands-off, withholding his support for any health care legislation.
Despite these obstacles, Welch said he believes the jump in prices that people across the country now face will break the logjam in Congress.
"A farmer in Vermont, their premium is going to go from $900 a month to $3,200, a month," Welch said. "So they're going to really face sticker shock. There's going to be a secondary impact, because the hospitals, particularly in rural areas, are going to lose revenue."
But even if the Senate advanced a compromise bill on the ACA, the House would also have to get behind it. And the lower chamber has its own bipartisan effort on an ACA subsidy extension.
Just before the recess began in mid-December, four House Republicans joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition on a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies — forcing a floor vote on the bill when the House returns.
Hours after bucking House Speaker Mike Johnson and joining Democrats, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., told Morning Edition back in December that he thinks this vote will get even more Republican support.
"I don't like the clean extension without any income cap," Fitzpatrick said. "But given the choice between a clean three-year extension and letting them expire, that's not a hard choice for me. And I suspect many of my other colleagues are going to view it the same way."
Fitzpatrick and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., have held meetings with moderate senators on legislative paths to extend the ACA subsidies, a source familiar with the talks but not authorized to speak publicly tells NPR.
The Senate returns on Jan. 5 and the House comes back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.
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