“Right before the election, people would get notices of big premium increases, and that will certainly not reflect well on Democrats,” said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Vulnerable Democratic lawmakers are trying to sound the alarm. A group of 26 House Democrats from swing districts, led by Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), sent a letter to leadership last week urging the extra subsidies to be extended.
“I’m worried that we’re running up on a cliff,” said Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), one of the signers of the letter, who compared it to the expanded child tax credit that was allowed to expire at the start of this year. “We’re suddenly going to lose that ability. It’s similar to the child tax credit, which, you know, just kind of came and went, the expiration of it. I just don’t want to see that happen. I think it is absolutely game-changing.”
Given Republican opposition to any increased spending on ObamaCare, an extension of the subsidies would have to be included in a party-line package using the reconciliation process to bypass a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
The problem for Democrats is that negotiations over that broader package with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the key swing vote, have shown few signs of progress for months.
But the health care cliff is adding increased urgency for Democrats to find a way forward on the package.