At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, Rep. Jen Kiggans, a member of a swing district and a key player in the party’s slim majority, stood up and launched a petition.
“Doing nothing about health is not the right response,” the Virginia Republican later told NBC News, summarizing her message to her colleagues. “I would really appreciate it if we could have a timeline, because we know it’s coming to the end of the year and I don’t want people’s premiums to go up. I don’t want people to lose their health insurance.”
The statements did not have a spectacular reception.
“Normal,” Kiggans responded when asked how she had been received. “We get in line and have one minute to make our case. “The usual reaction.”
Republicans are hurtling toward a cliff on health care with no solution in sight. An estimated 22 million people in the United States are about to see their health insurance premiums skyrocket, in some cases by thousands of dollars a month, as billions of dollars in funding for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expires on December 31. The expiring funds, costing about $35 billion a year, were first approved during the pandemic to subsidize insurance payments by capping premiums for a “benchmark” plan under the ACA, also known as Obamacare, at 8.5% of income.
Kiggans has introduced a bill to extend that funding for a year, as a stopgap measure to prevent rising costs while Congress negotiates a longer-term solution.
However, only 14 Republicans have signed it. His request seems to fall on deaf ears among the rest of the party.
President Donald Trump and Republicans have intensified their attacks on that funding, and have made it increasingly clear that they will not allow an extension in its current form.
“It’s going to end,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said Tuesday night, citing Trump’s opposition as part of the reason.
Instead, Republican leaders have tasked committee chairs and rank-and-file members with drafting alternative options that would allow funds to be delivered directly to Americans, perhaps through tax-advantaged health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible savings accounts (FSAs), or even direct cash payments.
“The only health care I will support or approve is the one that returns money directly to the people,” Trump wrote in all caps on social media on Tuesday, stating that he will not accept maintaining the ACA structure, in which funds are provided to insurance companies to keep premiums low. “Congress, don’t waste your time and energy on anything else,” Trump added.
Party leaders have taken note.
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House Republican leaders lashed out at the ACA during a closed-door meeting Tuesday and made strong arguments against expanding the subsidies, according to two lawmakers who attended the meeting. Instead, Republican leaders presented other potential ideas to help reduce health costs.
But at least one House Republican expressed frustration at how little time they have left to draft, much less pass, an alternative before the ACA hits a looming cliff. During Tuesday’s meeting, Rep. Nathaniel Moran of Texas stood up and complained that Republicans could have been working on their own health plan “for months,” the two lawmakers in the room said, instead of six weeks before the tax credits expire.
Trump assured reporters in West Palm Beach on Sunday that he is talking to Democrats about a direct payment plan for health care, saying, “I’ve had personal conversations with some Democrats.”
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However, a senior White House official could not identify any Democrat with whom Trump has discussed the issue on Tuesday. In a call with reporters Monday, Senate Health Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, couldn’t name any Democrats who are even open to the idea.
“I’ll let the Democrats speak for themselves, because I can’t tell them that everyone agrees,” he said.
Any plan would need 60 votes to advance in the Senate, meaning at least seven Democrats would have to support the legislation. Republicans have raised the possibility of using the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to push for a health solution without Democrats, but several of their proposals would be considered inadmissible.
Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who narrowly won in a competitive district around Scranton, declared that the expiration of ACA funding without a replacement plan would hurt his constituents.
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“My district is especially affected by this. Pulling out the rug is certainly not the solution,” Bresnahan said. “Therefore, I am in favor of extending the ACA, the enhanced premium tax credits, for a certain period of time.”
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said. that he is confident that ACA funding will not be extended in its current form.
“There’s no way a clean extension is going to make it to the House floor,” Harris said Tuesday after the GOP meeting, even suggesting it would spark a riot. “Activity would come to a complete halt in the (Lower) House if an attempt was made to bring that to the plenary session.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., who represents a competitive district Democrats are targeting in 2026, sharply criticized the law he calls the “Affordable Care Act” as a failure. He stated that the subsidies prove it.
“If something has to be subsidized, by definition, it is not affordable”Van Orden noted, arguing that Democrats “don’t give a damn” about health care beyond their ability to benefit politically from it. “This is about their political survival and, frankly, it’s disgusting.”
Cassidy noted that “it is incorrect to assume that a temporary extension” of ACA funding “can be implemented quickly,” and suggested that it is too late because insurers have set rates for 2026. Even if Democrats prefer a short-term extension, he said, “the president is not going to sign it.”
Michael Linden, an economic policy expert who worked in Biden’s White House budget office while the enhanced health care tax credits were being crafted, said Republicans missed their chance to extend the subsidies earlier this year.
“If Republicans in Congress had wanted to avoid large increases in health care premiums, the logical time to do so would have been in the middle of their massive reconciliation bill,” he explained.
There could still be a last-minute push if Republicans find themselves on the brink of the new year without a health care plan.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., one of the sponsors of the Kiggans bill, indicated he might consider signing a “recall petition” to bypass party leaders and force a vote on the measure in the House of Representatives.
“I would only consider it if something satisfactory is not being worked on and we only have some ideas, but nothing concrete,” he said.
Bresnahan did not close the door to supporting a recall petitionbut said the proposal by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to extend the grants for three years is “a little too long.” He said he’s also open to ideas to reform the ACA’s existing tax credits.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said he supports a one-year extension of ACA subsidies to give his party time to work on “longer-term issues” about the health plan.
“Right now, this should be negotiated between the House of Representatives and the Senate. That will be the quickest way to reach an agreement on this,” he said. “A (removal petition) can get it (the bill) out of the House (of Representatives), but if the Senate doesn’t agree, it won’t go anywhere. The goal here is to get it done before the end of the year.”
