Speaker Mike Johnson Confirms ACA Subsidy Extension Won’t Be In Short-Term Funding Bill

House Republicans have no plans to include an extension for expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies in a short-term stopgap funding measure Congress needs to pass this week.

Democrats have demanded concessions on health care — many specifically pointing to the subsidies — as critical in exchange for their votes. If the subsidies expire at the end of the year, millions of Americans could otherwise see their health care premiums spike. A handful of vulnerable Republicans are likewise pressuring leadership to extend the subsidies but are less adamant they be included in a must-pass funding measure.

Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed to NOTUS on Monday that he does not plan to include any extension to the subsidies in the continuing resolution.

“That’s a December policy issue, not a September funding issue,” he said.

The current thinking among Republican leadership is that including an extension could cause more harm than good. Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus have already stressed they would block the funding bill from advancing if the extension is included.

The chair of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, recently told NOTUS that if leadership decided to include an extension of the subsidies in the continuing resolution, then they would have to “find their votes somewhere else.”

Including the extension would even cause leadership problems for members who are not part of the Freedom Caucus, such as House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington.

“I don’t think it’s worth even a discussion to expand a failed experiment in socialized medicine,” Arrington told NOTUS. “I feel like I’m in a parallel universe this week.”

Arrington added that leadership had seemed to have “left the door cracked for consideration” of extending the subsidies, and he wants to “kick that door closed.

This story has been updated to include a quote from Speaker Mike Johnson.