As part of the agreement that ended the government shutdown last month, Republican leaders in the Senate promised a vote on a Democratic bill to protect health care consumers and to extend existing Affordable Care Act subsidies.
On Thursday afternoon, GOP leaders kept their promise and brought the Democratic bill to the floor for a procedural vote. It needed 60 votes to advance, but it received 51. A rival Republican bill, which included some conservative reforms but which wouldn’t have protected ACA subsidies at all, also needed 60 votes. It also received 51.
So where does that leave us? An MS NOW report summarized:
The failed votes leave lawmakers with just over two weeks to address the rising premiums. Many enrollees are expected to see their premiums more than double if lawmakers don’t act, and both chambers are scheduled to recess for the holidays at the end of next week.
Some lawmakers are still clinging to the hope that Thursday’s collapse might jolt bipartisan talks back to life.
That’s certainly possible, though there have been some sporadic bipartisan talks in recent weeks and months that haven’t led to anything close to a resolution.
On the Democratic side, the solution is simple: Party officials in both chambers have proposed a straightforward, three-year extension of the status quo. As the popularity of “Obamacare” reaches new heights, this approach would likely be welcome by most Americans, especially the tens of millions of Americans looking for a shield against dramatic price hikes they can’t afford.
On the Republican side, it would be unfair to say GOP officials haven’t put anything on the table. In fact, therein lies part of the problem: Republicans have too many things on the table, and they can’t agree among themselves what they want to do.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson intended to present his conference with a plan on Tuesday for GOP members to rally behind. That didn’t happen. Instead, on Wednesday, the Louisianan presented House Republicans with a package of conservative ideas, which would struggle to gain traction in the Senate, and the speaker encouraged his members to pick which of the items they most wanted to pursue.
It was less of a plan and more of a conservative health care buffet.
There are other GOP proposals in the mix — The Washington Post reported that House and Senate Republicans in recent weeks “have introduced at least nine different health care plans, with more in the works” — but there’s no intraparty agreement about the best course.
Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, stating what was already obvious, said Wednesday, “The consensus is we need to come up with something.” This came on the heels of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey saying, “The plan is to come up with something better [than Obamacare].” Of course, coming up with “something” is easier said than done. GOP officials have been trying to agree among themselves on an approach to health care policy for 16 years, and they still haven’t figured it out. In a normal political environment, this would ordinarily be about the time when the president would intervene, show some leadership, and set a path for his or her party. The trouble is, in 2025, as his party looks to him for guidance and direction, Donald Trump is responding with shrugged shoulders. Part of this is the result of his own illiteracy on health care policy, and part of it is the result of learned experience: The White House recently intended to unveil a plan to address the problem, but officials pulled the plug when congressional Republicans balked at the proposed solution. With lawmakers — or more to the point, their constituents — running out of calendar, it’s tough to be optimistic. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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