{"id":111233,"date":"2026-01-09T02:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T02:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/111233\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T02:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T02:16:11","slug":"maria-elvira-salazar-joins-democrats-in-vote-to-extend-health-care-credits-for-another-three-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/111233\/","title":{"rendered":"Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar joins Democrats in vote to extend health care credits for another three years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The U.S. House voted to extend pandemic era tax credits for insurance plans obtained through the Affordable Care Act. U.S. Reps. Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar was among the 17 Republicans who joined with Democrats to pass the measure over objections from GOP leadership.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI voted YES to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits, and I didn\u2019t hesitate. I know firsthand how many families in FL-27 depend on this assistance to afford care,\u201d Salazar, a Coral Gables Republican, posted on X. \u201cOur district has one of the highest enrollment rates in the nation, and without them, thousands face higher premiums or possibly no coverage at all. This isn\u2019t partisan. It\u2019s human.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But no other Florida Republicans supported the extension despite the Sunshine State being home to 4.7 million individuals benefitting from the subsidies, more than any other state.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The move marked a rebuke of Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump, who both have opposed an extension of the subsidies. The <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/771309-health-subsidies-expire-launching-millions-of-americans-into-2026-with-steep-insurance-hikes\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">expiration<\/a> of tax credits at the end of 2025 was a central concern for Congressional Democrats at the heart of a <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/761292-shutdown-impact-what-it-means-for-workers-federal-programs-and-the-economy\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">record government shutdown<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Legislation extending the tax credits reached the floor only after a discharge petition by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Four Republicans, none from Florida, signed that petition last year to get it to the required 218 supporters and requiring a vote.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinpointresults.com\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/PinpointAd_728x90.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"79\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-309437\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This week, a vote was held to bring it the floor in response to the discharge. With that, nine Republicans, including Salazar joined all Democrats in the House to go ahead with a vote.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While Salazar did not ultimately sign Jeffries discharge before it reached the required threshold, she did sign two other petitions for bipartisan proposals extending credits short term.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cFL-27 has one of the highest numbers of families relying on the Affordable Care Act,\u201d the Coral Gables Republican posted on X last year, though she later deleted it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThat\u2019s why I signed the discharge petition to force a vote to extend ACA subsidies, so health care costs don\u2019t spike for working families. We can fight fraud, waste, and abuse without hurting people who depend on these plans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Miami-Dade was hit especially hard by the expiration of tax credits, with Miami-Dade\u2019s four congressional districts making up most of the top five districts in the country for tax credit users, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/affordable-care-act\/congressional-district-interactive-map-how-much-will-aca-premium-payments-rise-if-enhanced-subsidies-expire\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Kaiser Family Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jimforcongress.com\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-756307\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/JS-728x90-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"729\" height=\"91\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Still, most Florida Republicans voted against the extension. That included U.S. Rep. Mario D\u00edaz-Balart, a Hialeah Republican who represents more people benefitting from subsidies than any other member of the House. But he said ahead of the vote subsidizing health care through the Affordable Care Act was the reason costs were rising to astronomic levels. But he had introduced a bill to extend subsidies <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/761379-mario-diaz-balart-says-health-care-subsidies-could-be-saved-if-democrats-let-government-reopen\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">by a single year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">All Florida Democrats backed the three-year extension.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cEveryday costs are already too high, and extending Affordable Care Act assistance will help keep millions of Americans from being forced to choose between seeing a doctor and paying their rent,\u201d said Rep. Lois Frankel, a West Palm Beach Democrat. \u201cSenate Republicans and Donald Trump must now step up to stop a full-blown health care crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But the Senate is not expected to take up a subsidy extension again after <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/769482-ashley-moody-rick-scott-vote-to-kill-extension-of-health-care-subsidies\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">voting against<\/a> such a proposal in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. House voted to extend pandemic era tax credits for insurance plans obtained through the Affordable Care&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6697,409,28,30,29,56691,6584,8878,8879,9778,56692],"class_list":{"0":"post-111233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-affordable-care-act","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-hakeem-jeffries","14":"tag-health-care","15":"tag-maria-elvira-salazar","16":"tag-mario-diaz-balart","17":"tag-mike-johnson","18":"tag-tex-credits"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}