Jeffries, Dems plan three year extension of Obamacare subsidies

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House Democratic leaders on Tuesday will propose a three-year extension of the soon-to-expire ObamaCare subsidies at the center of the shutdown fight.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, will offer the legislation as an amendment to the Senate-passed spending agreement during a meeting of the Rules Committee on Tuesday night.

The amendment is all but guaranteed to fail, given the Republican majority on the Rules panel and the GOP’s long-standing opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which they’ve sought to repeal since its creation 15 years ago.

But the push is designed to put Republican lawmakers on record opposing an extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits, which benefit more than 20 million Americans of all political affiliations around the country. Those patients are facing huge spikes in premiums and other out-of-pocket health care costs if Congress doesn’t intervene before Jan. 1.

“House Republicans: Welcome back from your taxpayer-funded, seven-week vacation,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol shortly before the Rules Committee was set to meet. “You now have an opportunity to actually take some action in an area of this health care crisis by working with Democrats, before the Rules Committee this evening, to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”

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