The U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on October 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives, struggling to find a way to get a handle on rising health insurance costs, will face a vote in early 2026 on Democrats’ plan to extend the Affordable Care Act’s expanded tax credits for three more years.
The House vote on this bill will come after a handful of moderate Republicans signed a dismissal petition Wednesday morning. Their disagreement with the leadership was a sturdy signal that they are frustrated with the majority’s policies and rising health care costs for their constituents.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after a morning vote series at the site in which he was seen in a heated exchange with Republican Rep. Mike Lawler that the two “just had an intense camaraderie” and “everything is good.”
Lawler is one of four centrist Republicans who signed the dismissal petition, crossing the threshold of 218 to force a vote on the bill.
“We work on very complex problems, as we do here all the time,” Johnson said. “Everyone is working on ideas – we keep the productive conversation going.”
The speaker also defended himself, saying he “did not lose control of the House.”
After the government shutdown, when Johnson decided to send MPs home for almost two months, there was chaos and intra-party divisions in this chamber.
“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 used less frequently when there are larger majorities, and if you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people disagreeing about something, you don’t have to deal with it, but if you have a razor-thin margin like we do, then every procedure in the book that people believe is on the table, and that’s the difference.”
Senate approach
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he has not yet decided whether to bring up the Democrats’ bill in the House if it passes and arrives.
“Well, we’ll see. I mean, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, of course,” Thune said. “Even if they have a sufficient number of signatures, I doubt they will vote on it this week.”
Thune said the relief proposal to extend the ACA tax credits for three years is very different from the relief proposal that forced a vote in the House of Representatives on a bill that required the release of the Epstein files. Files related to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting a federal trial on sex trafficking charges, have become a target of Congress and his victims in recent months.
“The result here was pretty unanimous, 427 to 1,” Thune said.
“And I anticipate that this dismissal motion will be a very likely partisan vote.”
The Senate Voted earlier this month on Democrats’ three-year ACA tax credit bill, a move Thune agreed to in order to secure enough Democratic votes to end the government shutdown. That bill, identical to the House version, failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance on a 51-48 vote.
Both chambers are expected to leave Capitol Hill for their two-week winter recess later this week and will not return to work until the week of January 5.
Frustration breaks through
The House is scheduled to vote on Republican leadership’s own health care bill later Wednesday after the chamber voted 213-209 to approve the rule, which sets up debate on the legislation.
The bill that Johnson Published Friday eveningdoes not extend the expanded ACA market tax credits that Democrats originally created during the coronavirus pandemic. The extended credits expire at the end of this month.
Johnson made his decision on Tuesday not allow The House must debate any changes to the bill, preventing moderate Republicans from taking up their bipartisan proposal to extend the ACA marketplace tax credits with amendments.
That led to considerable frustration, and on Wednesday morning, Pennsylvania Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, along with New York Rep. Lawler, signed the Democrats’ dismissal motion, bringing it to the 218 signatures needed to force a floor vote.
“We have worked in good faith for months with both parties, in both chambers and with the White House to balance all interests and provide a responsible bridge that successfully threaded the needle,” Fitzpatrick wrote in a statement.
“Our only wish was for a full House vote on this compromise so that the voice of the American people could be heard on this issue,” Fitzpatrick added. “That motion was defeated. Then, at the request of the House leadership, I, along with my colleagues, filed several amendments and testified extensively on those amendments. The House leadership then decided to reject each and every one of those amendments. As I have said many times, the only policy worse than a clean three-year extension without reform is a full phase-out, no-bridge policy. Unfortunately, it is the House leadership itself that forced this outcome.”
Jeffries presented a petition
The Dismissal applicationThe signature list introduced last month by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries fell brief of the required signatures for weeks as centrist Republicans tried to broker a deal that could become law.
When that logjam broke with moderates’ signatures, a vote was taken in the House of Representatives, but any legislation must also pass through the Senate and receive President Donald Trump’s signature.
Without a law to extend expanded ACA market subsidies, about 22 million Americans will see their health insurance premiums rise by thousands of dollars next year if they can budget for the cost augment.
