Headline Roundup • December 17th, 2025
House Won't Vote to Extend Affordable Care Act
Summary from the AllSides News Team
On Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the House of Representatives would not be voting to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.
The Details: Johnson said there will not be an amendment vote on extending expiring enhanced subsidies for the ACA as part of a House Republican health care bill that was rolled out on Friday. Some moderate House Republicans, who had been pushing to "go on the record" about the subsidies, which were first expanded through the American Rescue Plan and later extended in the Inflation Reduction Act, have voiced discontent. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said, "I think it's idiotic not to have an up-or-down vote on this issue... It is political malpractice." Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has asked Johnson to offer up a vote on an extension of the tax credits for three years without reforms.
For Context: Moderate Republicans and Republican leadership had met over the weekend to discuss extending the subsidies. The negotiations hit a roadblock when conservative and Republican leadership said that any extension needed to be offset with spending cuts.
How The Media Covered It: Outlets across the political spectrum are highlighting that moderate Republicans are upset at Johnson's decision. Several sources on the left pointed out that moderate Republicans are concerned that insurance premiums would soar in the new year and that they have warned of the political ramifications of allowing this to happen.
Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
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A moderate House Republican is raging against his own party after negotiations over a vote on extending COVID-19-era Obamacare subsidies fell apart.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday morning that it was "idiotic" and "political malpractice" to not hold an "up-or-down vote" on the subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of this year.
He also turned his ire on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who he accused of rejecting moderate Republicans' compromise solutions in order to keep the issue alive as a political cudgel.
The House won't vote this week on an extension to the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium subsidies, which lapse at the end of the year.
An 11th-hour effort by moderate Republicans to put an extension on the floor for a vote failed Tuesday night, when the House Rules Committee blocked several of the amendments they were seeking to the attach to a GOP health care plan released last week. The GOP plan does not include an extension.
The committee advanced the bill to the floor late Tuesday. A vote is...
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said there will not be an amendment vote on extending expiring ObamaCare enhanced subsidies as part of a House Republican health care bill this week, in a move that is infuriating moderate Republicans who had been pushing to go on the record about the subsidies.
Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday that about a dozen Republican members in competitive districts are "fighting hard to make sure that they reduce costs for all of their constituents."
"Many of them did want to vote on this ObamaCare...
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