The inability to find a credible counter to the Affordable Care Act has long bedeviled Republicans and cost them at the polls. It’s threatening to do so again next year.
Republicans blocked Democrats’ effort to extend the expiring subsidies while Democrats thwarted a G.O.P. proposal to replace them with direct payments for basic health coverage.
The Senate is set to vote later this week on a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that Republicans oppose. The G.O.P. has yet to coalesce around an alternative.
Republicans and Democrats released a two-year plan to scale back and extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, but it faces long odds in the G.O.P.-led House.
About half of people covered under the Affordable Care Act say that if their health costs spike, it will have a “major impact” on how they vote in the 2026 midterm elections, a survey found.
A small cadre of politically vulnerable Republicans in Congress is breaking with the party to push for the extension of health care tax credits for a program the G.O.P. reviles.
President Trump has not made a final decision. But he is under pressure to address the cost of health care, which for many Americans will jump if the subsidies expire.
The president claimed that the Affordable Care Act benefited insurance companies over people, saying he would work with both parties on the issue “once the Government is open.”