The White House’s hopes for big legislative wins in the coming months are about to crash into the reality of the congressional GOP.
Deep divisions remain among Republicans over how to address spiking health care costs — and whether they should jam through a potential solution with a party-line vote in the Senate. And, of course, Democrats have little interest in helping them out.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s willingness to go to war against Republicans isn’t helping party unity.
The GOP rift is playing out ahead of the end-of-year expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. While vulnerable moderates want GOP leaders to extend the tax credits, Trump and some conservatives are calling for an entirely new framework, like an overhaul of health savings accounts.
Trump’s top political aide, James Blair, on Tuesday raised the possibility of a megabill sequel — pursuing GOP health care priorities through the party-line reconciliation process, which lets Republicans skirt a Democratic filibuster. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday that Republican leaders are talking to members about the possibility to see if “consensus forms.”
That pitch is being rejected by Republicans who remember how excruciating it was to pass the megabill this summer. They worry another attempt could undermine efforts to work across the aisle on matters like government funding.
“I don’t want another one-sided, partisan reconciliation bill right now — I want us to legislate,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who cast a decisive vote in the first package. “Let’s be legislators here. Reconciliation is, yes, it’s a tool for us, but it’s a partisan tool and look at how divided we are right now. … That’s not the way to go.”
Any attempt at partisan legislation will be complicated by the fact that Republicans are increasingly willing to break from Trump. (Case in point: Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.)
Speaker Mike Johnson, for his part, acknowledged a lesson that could be crucial for the president to grasp: Today’s enemy could be tomorrow’s indispensable ally.
“I work on unity in the party, and my encouragement of everybody is to get together,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to do all that in order to deliver for the people.”
What else we’re watching:
— House floor action: The House is expected to vote Wednesday to repeal a provision in the shutdown-ending deal that could allow eight GOP senators to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for having their electronic records seized during the Biden administration. And while there’s bipartisan support in both chambers to roll back the provision, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who secured the language, is standing by it.
— Notable Wednesday hearings: Paragon Health Institute’s Brian Blase, one of the fiercest critics of extending the enhanced ACA subsidies, will testify at a 10 a.m. Senate Finance hearing on rising health care costs. There’s also a 10 a.m. House Administration hearing on congressional insider trading, which is happening as pressure builds for House GOP leadership to take up a bipartisan bill banning the practice.
— What’s next for appropriations: Talks are set to ramp up on the other nine spending bills that weren’t included in last week’s shutdown-ending minibus deal. House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has meetings teed up Wednesday morning to huddle with his subcommittee chairs, then with all House Republican appropriators.
Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
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