The Texas’ House GOP delegation voted this week for a health care package that lets the tax credits lapse but will be forced to vote on a three-year extension in January. While most Republicans in the U.S. House don’t want to extend expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits no alternative plan has been put forth.
The subsidies were part of federal funding debate that led to the government shutdown this past fall which has continued since that time. With no clear solution, the enhanced premium tax credits that lower health care costs for some Americans is set to expire on Dec. 31.
Texas’ representatives in the House voted for a health care package on Wednesday that would expand association health plans, place new regulations on pharmacy benefit managers and fund cost-sharing reductions for low-income ACA enrollees, while letting the subsidies lapse. Four Republicans joined with Democrats to force a floor vote next month on a temporary extension of the tax credit. Through premium tax credits, which have existed since 2014, the federal government pays insurers to lower costs for people who receive coverage through the ACA marketplace. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress expanded the credits and their eligibility. The change led to skyrocketing ACA enrollment, including in Texas. In 2021,1.3 million people in the state were enrolled and has now expanded to 3.9 million.
According to some, getting rid of the enhanced premium tax credits would double the premium. Once the subsidies expire, KFF projects nearly 4 million Americans will drop their coverage and that more than a quarter of these people will be from Texas.
Republicans argued that people take advantage of the credits to defraud the government, wasting taxpayer dollars and benefiting insurance companies without addressing the underlying problem of rising health care costs.
“The Democrats are trying to put forward an extension of a COVID-era, fraudridden subsidy,” U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, said in a floor speech Wednesday. “You all have proven that government is the problem, and we’ve got the solution that actually delivers the affordability to the American people.”