House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday he remains confident that Congress will extend expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits despite persistent opposition from Republicans.
In a Sunday morning interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week,” Jeffries dismissed Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s remarks that a clean three-year extension of the credits would be dead on arrival in the Senate, saying Thune “is not serious about protecting the health care of the American people.”
“It will pass, with a bipartisan majority, and then that will put the pressure on John Thune and Senate Republicans to actually do the right thing by the American people: pass a straightforward extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits so we can keep health care affordable for tens of millions of Americans who deserve to be able to go see a doctor when they need one,” Jeffries said.
The House is set to vote in January on a clean three-year subsidy extension after a Democratic discharge petition reached the necessary signature threshold to force a House vote on the bill against the objections of Speaker Mike Johnson. That comes after the House passed a Republican health care bill along party lines last week that does not address the credits, all but ensuring the subsidies lapse at the end of the year.
In an interview with Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday,” Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) of the Problem Solvers Caucus emphasized that the Democratic bill is a only a short-term solution to the problem. Fitzpatrick was one of four Republicans who signed onto Democrats’ discharge petition advancing the bill on a clean extension.
Praising Fitzpatrick for his willingness to work across party lines, Suozzi said: “The idea is to get a vehicle to the Senate so that we can work together to actually address it.” But the bill still faces steep opposition from Senate Republicans.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday he remains opposed to extending the subsidies, instead touting his alternative health care plan to expand Association Health Plans, which allow customers to negotiate with health insurance companies for lower premiums.
Paul was the lone Republican in the Senate to oppose the GOP plan to create government-funded health savings accounts earlier this month.
“We have health care in our country for poor people. It’s called Medicaid. All of the rest of the stuff has not worked,” Paul said in an interview with Karl on ABC. “Obamacare has been a failure. President Obama said it would bring premiums down; premiums have gone through the roof. Every time we give more subsidies, the premiums go higher.”
Still, Jeffries did not concede that the health care system must be reformed, telling Karl only that “there are a variety of different things that need to be done.”
Jeffries instead attacked President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers for what he called empty promises about lowering costs.
“As Democrats, we’re promising to focus relentlessly on driving down the high cost of living, to make life more affordable for everyday Americans, and to fix our broken health care system, which Republicans have been damaging in an extraordinary way throughout the year, including by enacting the largest cut to Medicaid in American history,” he said.