WASHINGTON — Senate negotiations aimed at striking a bipartisan deal to revive expired funds under the Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare — have fizzled, according to senators involved and sources with knowledge of the discussions.
The odds of a deal have been slim for months. Now, on the day that ACA open enrollment ends, even the optimists have grown pessimistic as the working group falls behind its self-imposed timeline. The Senate left town Thursday for a one-week recess.
Democrats are unified behind a three-year ACA funding extension, which passed the House recently with 230 votes, including 17 Republicans. President Donald Trump has threatened to veto that bill, instead releasing a health care blueprint that trashes the ACA funds as a “flagrant scam” and conveys his opposition to reviving the expired tax credits.
Most Republicans want the funds to stay expired, and have made clear for months that they don’t want to resurrect them. A small group of GOP senators has engaged in talks with moderate Democrats about a compromise, but conservative demands to tie any deal to abortion restrictions have become “intractable,” said one source plugged in to the talks.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, who has been part of the talks and spoken optimistically about the prospects, told NBC News on Tuesday that the group will “hopefully” reach a deal and release “a tentative thing soonish.”
But on Thursday, that bullishness faded. Moreno said it’s the fault of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., saying he must “go out publicly” and endorse the group’s emerging framework, which includes a two-year ACA funding extension with income limits, and a $5 per month minimum payment.
But the group has failed to reach agreement on two of the biggest sticking points, including Trump’s call to move money out of the ACA system and toward health savings accounts, and Republican demands for stricter “Hyde amendment” language, or abortion restrictions, tied to any deal.
“Would you encourage your conference to negotiate with Republicans to pass a two-year extension with the reforms that have been outlined? It’s a simple yes or no,” Moreno said of Schumer. “Right now, it seems like no. So why would we waste time and effort?”
But Schumer has not discouraged his members from pursuing a compromise with Republicans, sources close to two of the Democratic senators involved in the discussions said.
“Absolutely not,” one of the sources said.
The second source said Moreno appeared to be trying to deflect from his own party’s widespread opposition to continuing the ACA money. The source added that Trump’s suggestion for Republicans to be “flexible” on abortion hurt negotiations by sparking a backlash from anti-abortion rights advocates and made GOP senators even more spooked about cutting a deal.
Schumer said in a statement to NBC News: “Everyone knows Democrats have been trying to negotiate a deal to extend ACA tax credits since the summer. Senator Moreno is trying to distract from the reality: the credits expired and Americans are paying thousands more because Republicans can’t get their act together.”
Schumer’s office said the minority leader met with Trump on Thursday at the White House. Among other topics of discussion, Schumer “raised the need for President Trump to push Senate Republicans to support the three-year extension of the ACA tax credit bill that has already passed the House,” his office said.
Apart from Schumer, many Republicans remain skeptical of any bipartisan deal to renew ACA subsidies. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has not endorsed any proposal to extend ACA funds and voted against the House-backed three-year extension.
Earlier this week, he criticized the enhanced ACA funds, which he noted were first passed as part of a Covid relief package under President Joe Biden.
“There is waste, fraud, and abuse in Obamacare,” Thune said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “And it seems that the Biden Covid subsidies were especially susceptible to fraud.”