House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) predicted Sunday that an extension of subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will pass the House with backing from both sides of the aisle.
“House Democrats are going to continue to fight to get this extension through the Congress on our side. It will pass with a bipartisan majority,” Jeffries told host Jonathan Karl on ABC News’s “This Week.”
The ACA credits, which expire on Dec. 31, are set to be a subject of intense negotiations on Capitol Hill once both chambers return in the new year.
Earlier this week, four House Republicans joined 214 Democrats in signing a discharge petition bringing a three-year extension of the subsidies to the floor. While House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declined to bring the bill up for a vote before the lower chamber adjourned, the proposal will be one of the first orders of business come January.
If it passes, that will put pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and his caucus to reverse course and back an extension, Jeffries noted. A three-year extension of the ACA subsidies — backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — failed in the upper chamber earlier this month because of opposition from the majority of the GOP.
If the credits are not extended, gross benchmark premiums will increase by an annual average of 7.9 percent from next year through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO also projects that without a permanent extension of the subsidies, the number of uninsured individuals will increase by an average of 3.8 million annually from 2026 to 2034.
