No healthcare deal as Republicans leave Washington

'Twas the week before Christmas and all throughout the people's House, not a deal on healthcare in sight, or a ban on members trading stocks or their spouse. House Speaker Mike Johnson elected to send the House of Representatives home on Thursday without a vote to stave off the impending expiration of enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. This came even though four Republicans signed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries's discharge petition to force a vote on a three-year extension for the tax credits, which expire at the end of the month.

This means the 22 million Americans who buy their insurance on the marketplace could see their premiums double or even triple. Johnson told The Independent he would not advance the legislation because once a petition receives the requisite 218 signatures, it has to sit on the calendar for seven legislative days. With the House out of session until next year, the clock will resume once it begins again. "Because you cannot fast-forward the consideration on the floor of a discharge petition," Johnson said.

Of course, the speaker could easily keep the House in session to allow the legislative calendar to resume. Instead, he's sending the House home for Christmas without any solution. Understandably, many Republicans are not happy about it. Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) criticised Johnson for keeping the House out of session for almost two months during the government shutdown. "It was definitely a mistake for him not to bring one of these compromise measures to the floor," Kiley told The Independent.

Kiley has been angry at Johnson for a while, given how he handled the government shutdown, but also for the fact that Johnson did not come up with a congressional solution for redistricting, which allowed for Texas to redraw its map to favor Republicans. That led to California voting for Proposition 50, which allows a one-time partisan redraw of its congressional map, which now means Kiley could lose his race.

Kiley also torched Jeffries for the way he handled the health care premium crisis. "But you could equally say that Jeffries didn't meet him halfway, because he said, 'No, I'm going to support this one and only one uncompromising, rigid proposal with no reforms that the Senate has already rejected and so has no chance of becoming law.'" In Kiley's defense, a three-year extension will not pass in the Senate. Republicans killed it last week. Kiley signed separate discharge petitions from a bipartisan coterie of lawmakers to force a vote.

Instead, the House voted only on a grab-bag list of health care policies cobbled together on Wednesday evening that did not include an extension of the health care premiums. But Johnson prevented even a vote on amendments to extend the subsidies on the health care bill, driving those four moderates into the arms of Democrats and Jeffries. This explains why Reps Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York, both of whom represent districts that voted for Kamala Harris, signed the discharge petition. Reps. Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania flipped two toss-up seats in 2024. And Sen. Susan Collins, the only Republican from a state that voted for Harris, told The Independent that she's working on a bill. But Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune-as well as President Donald Trump-seem perfectly content to sacrifice these frontliners and let the tax credits expire.

It's another piece of evidence of how Johnson has ruled the House with the dual focus of maintaining his own power by avoiding a conservative revolt against him and pleasing Trump. And Trump opposes an extension. Rather, Republicans spent their last day in Washington passing anti-trans messaging bills that would criminalise providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth and ban Medicaid from covering care for transgender people younger than 18.

As Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) told The Independent last week, "They're going to be sending huge lumps of coal home in stockings for people, and that's a big problem for them." And it will be a crisis of Republicans' own making.