U.S. House Grab Bag Discharge Petition 10 Reaches 218 Signatures

Speaker Johnson has refused to put House Resolution 780 on the floor before the holiday recess.  He will do so after the 119th U.S. Congress reconvenes in 2026. A vote is expected during the week of January 5th - probably on the 7th or 8th.

U.S. House Resolution 780 passed yesterday, 221 to 205.  This will force a vote on H.R.1834, the Breaking the Gridlock Act, shortly:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5678236-house-republicans-obamacare-subsidies/

These nine Republicans back Democrats’ effort to revive ObamaCare subsidies
By Ryan Mancini - January 7, 2026

Nine House Republicans voted on Wednesday to compel the lower chamber to vote on a Democratic bill to revive ObamaCare subsidies after they expired at the start of the new year.

Republican Reps. Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Nicolas LaLota (N.Y.) Robert Bresnahan (Penn.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Penn.), Ryan Mackenzie (Penn.), María Elvira Salazar (Fla.), Max Miller (Ohio), David Valadao (Calif.) and Thomas Kean (N.J.) voted with all 212 House Democrats.

The House will vote on final passage on Thursday.

The bill is not expected to pass in the Senate, but a bipartisan group of senators is working on a compromise bill that would still extend subsidies, Politico reported. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said the bill text could be released as early as Monday.

Sticking points with the bill continue to plague its progress. Moreno said one of its issues is that under the deal, people would pay a $5 minimum monthly premium at the low end, and anyone earning more than 700 percent of the federal poverty level would be excluded. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Wyo.) called it a “rate hike.”

Health care subsidies remain a sticking point on Capitol Hill amid federal funding talks, all of which led to the longest government shutdown in modern U.S. history back in October. Democratic lawmakers could again use Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies as leverage if it is not resolved before a funding bill is passed.

Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) previously told The Hill he thinks there should be another shutdown if there’s no agreement on ACA subsidies.

“I mean, we can’t kick all of these people off of their health care plans because they can’t afford them,” Vargas said. “That’s outrageous.”

The U.S. House passed H.R.1834, the Breaking the Gridlock Act, this afternoon 230 to 196. Not a veto proof margin. It now goes to the Senate where its future is uncertain:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5680184-obamacare-tax-credits-bill-passes-house/

House passes extension of ObamaCare subsidies as moderates seek compromise
By Mike Lillis, Nathaniel Weixel and Emily Brooks - January 8, 2026

The House on Thursday passed legislation to revive and extend expired ObamaCare tax credits in a bipartisan vote that is boosting hopes of centrist Republicans for a bipartisan deal to revive the tax credits.

The tally, 230 to 196, highlighted the tenuous grip Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has over his restive GOP conference. Seventeen centrist Republicans crossed the aisle to join every voting Democrat in support of the measure.

The measure, which would extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies for three years originally passed in response to COVID-19, now heads to the Senate, which defeated the same proposal last month in a largely partisan vote. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has suggested he’ll ignore the House bill altogether.

Still, lawmakers think it could light a fire and pressure the bipartisan Senate group working to reach a bipartisan deal.

Negotiators from both parties in the Senate, who revived compromise talks in response to centrist Republicans forcing the vote in the House, have said they are close to a deal to bring back the tax credits, which expired at the end of 2025, and extend the open enrollment period.

“We want to show momentum coming out of the House today,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who has been working with GOP moderates on the subsidy extension plans. “And the Senate is very far along on finding an agreement on their side.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who huddled with bipartisan Senate negotiators Thursday, said the vote should be a pressure point for the Senate.

“Senators made it abundantly clear that, but for this action in the House … that that was incredibly important for them to breathe life back into this issue and really force the Senate to take this up,” Fitzpatrick told reporters.

Passage in the House marked a major victory for Democrats and the handful of centrist Republicans who had bucked their leadership to endorse a procedural gambit, known as a discharge petition, that forced the bill to the floor over the opposition of Johnson and other GOP leaders.

It was an extraordinary demonstration of defiance, because discharge petitions are rarely successful. And the vote was particularly notable because it centered around ObamaCare, which Republicans have sought to dismantle since its very inception in 2010.

Heading into the vote, Democratic leaders in both chambers were already calling on Thune to bring the proposal to the floor again, predicting the House vote would be enough to compel more Senate Republicans to drop their opposition.

“American people should ask Leader Thune: Are you willing to put this bill that the House now is moving forward on, on the floor of the Senate? Because it will pass,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Thursday, hours before the House vote. “And that is the way to get this done.”

Yet even some of the most vocal supporters of the ACA subsidies say the House bill is dead in the water when it’s sent to the Senate.

“The three-year extension is never going to become law. We know that. The Senate already voted on it. They voted it down,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the four Republicans who endorsed the Democrats’ discharge petition forcing Thursday’s House vote. “So the question becomes, procedurally, how do you actually get to a compromise?”

Many Republicans remain opposed to reviving the tax credits at all, seeing them as unnecessarily expensive. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office on Thursday said the three-year extension would cost $80 billion.

The centrist Republicans supporting the subsidy extension made clear that they have plenty of problems with the underlying benefits; they want to alter the program to tighten the income eligibility limits and tackle fraud.

The bipartisan deal emerging in the Senate would extend the enhanced subsidies for two years, along with an income cap and language requiring a minimum premium of $5 a month to eliminate the $0 premium plans Republicans say are rife with fraud. It also would give patients the option of receiving funding in a health savings account.

But with millions of people poised to see a spike in health care costs in the early months of this year, those Republicans — many of whom are in competitive midterm races — also felt they had to step in to protect their constituents.

Another major sticking point are demands from conservative Republicans, who have never supported ObamaCare, to increase restrictions against ObamaCare health plans covering abortion.

President Trump gave fuel to GOP moderates’ hopes of overcoming the impasse on abortion and striking a bipartisan deal when he pleaded in a speech to House Republicans on Tuesday to be “flexible on Hyde” — in reference to the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funds from directly paying for abortion — when talking about health care.

The Hyde amendment does not prohibit Affordable Care Act plans from covering abortions, so long as there are no federal dollars being used for that coverage.

The law has a mechanism that segregates taxpayer money, and any plan that covers abortion needs to charge each enrollee $1 per month extra.

But anti-abortion activists and Republicans argue that current law does not sufficiently prevent federal funds from subsidizing health plans that cover abortion in some states.

Lawmakers involved in the negotiations have acknowledged that Hyde remains a sticking point.

“I think all the other things can be resolved,” Fitzpatrick said, but Hyde is “really the toughest for them to navigate.”

But he said there is a growing consensus not to add any additional restrictions, and reinforce the existing law.

Still, he added that Should the Senate, in your view, should the Senate avoid allowing Hyde

“This is an affordability issue. That’s how it should be viewed. Health care affordability, and I don’t think Hyde has any place in this.”