\n Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday would not commit to a vote on a GOP health care proposal this week with key Affordable Care Act subsidies soon to expire.\n <\/p>\n
\n Democrats are set to get a Senate vote later this week on their proposal to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies for three years without any changes. The plan \u2013 lacking enough Republican support to pass \u2013 is expected to fail but Republicans agreed to hold the vote after Democrats made it a demand to reopen the government during the record-breaking shutdown.\n <\/p>\n
\n Republicans have long been divided over how to replace the Affordable Care Act and are weighing multiple proposals as the clock ticks down on the expiring tax credits. While some are open to letting them sunset, others are concerned that higher prices could hurt Republicans in the midterms, and GOP leadership wants to present a united front on the issue.\n <\/p>\n
\n As Republicans have struggled to coalesce around an alternative bill, they argue they have a lot of ideas to make changes to health care and are willing to talk with Democrats about them once Democrats cast what the GOP sees as a messaging, designed-to-fail vote, and say they won\u2019t be driven by their timetable.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a conversation tomorrow with our members and kind of decide the path forward. We could \u2013 we have some good options. But this, to me, is on the Democrats\u2019 part, is a messaging exercise, political messaging exercise. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re serious about wanting to do a deal yet,\u201d Thune said, though he acknowledged that Republicans \u201chave people in different camps\u201d on how to deal with the expiring tax credits.\n <\/p>\n
\n GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville warned that his party could face political backlash if they don\u2019t put forward a health care plan soon, urging them to coalesce behind something that can earn enough bipartisan support to become law.\n <\/p>\n
\n Asked by CNN\u2019s Manu Raju if he\u2019s worried Republicans will be on the wrong side of public opinion on health care, Tuberville responded, \u201cIt very well could be, if we don\u2019t come up with something that lets the American people know that we\u2019re trying to fix this, and we are.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The Alabama Republican defended Thune not yet committing to holding a vote on a GOP health care plan later this week.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou just don\u2019t throw it out there. You gotta have the votes, at least from us. But there will be something,\u201d he said, adding that GOP lawmakers have been working \u201cnight and day\u201d to draft an acceptable plan.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to a senior GOP aide, Republicans are unlikely to have a vote on any alternative to the Democrat plan this week. The vote on the Democratic bill is likely to take place Thursday, but has not yet been officially scheduled.\n <\/p>\n
\n Thune later added, \u201c[Sens.] Crapo and Cassidy put a proposal out there, but I think the idea \u2013 which doesn\u2019t include any extension of the subsidies \u2014 but I do think that if the Democrats were serious and really wanted to work in a constructive way with Republicans, there\u2019s perhaps a path forward there, but that\u2019s not this.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n He noted that he believes that there are Democrats who are ready to negotiate with Republicans, but said, \u201cI think they are being probably marginalized a bit by their leadership, and in order to get this, I think, political messaging vote done first, and then we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n On Monday, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio unveiled a bill to that would extend subsidies for two years while making changes to the program Republicans have been demanding related to income caps and mandated premiums. While the Senate GOP strategy over the expiring tax credits remains in flux, that bill is also not expected to get a vote this week.\n <\/p>\n
\n Republican Sen. Roger Marshall said he hopes Republicans will have some \u201cclarity\u201d on what health care plan they will pursue in the coming days but expressed skepticism a solution to the expiring Obamacare subsidies will be reached by week\u2019s end.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be clarity come through this week. But, unfortunately, since the Democrats kept everything shut down for so long, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to get a definitive answer this week,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n This story has been updated with additional details.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday would not commit to a vote on a GOP health care…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-305976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}