Sen. James Lankford said he will leave it to voters to decide whether Republicans are responsible if enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies lapse at year-end, defending GOP efforts to propose an alternative to a straight extension. Sen. Lisa Murkowski warned that Republicans could face political consequences if they fail to act, saying constituents expect Congress to address priorities they rely on. Lankford argued that the pandemic-era tax credits ultimately flow to insurers and that extended subsidies have masked structural problems in the ACA.
Lankford: Voters Will Decide If GOP Is To Blame For Lapse In ObamaCare Subsidies
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told CNN’s State of the Union that he will leave it to the American people to decide whether Republicans should be held responsible if enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies lapse at the end of the year. Lankford defended recent GOP efforts to craft an alternative to simply extending the COVID-era tax credits for marketplace plans.
Asked whether he agreed with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — who has warned Republicans could suffer politically if the subsidies expire — Lankford said voters will determine where responsibility lies.
"We will allow the American people to be able to make decisions on that, where they see where the problem actually originated from," Lankford said.
Murkowski told CNN correspondent Manu Raju that constituents expect Congress to act on priorities they depend on and that failure to do so has consequences.
"When people feel that they have counted on or waited for their Congress to act on an issue that they feel is a huge priority, and they see no action, there’s consequence to that," Murkowski said. "As the party in charge, we have got a responsibility to figure it out. And so I do think that there are ramifications if we fail to act on this."
Lankford defended the GOP’s push for an alternative approach, arguing that Republicans and Democrats disagree about the best long-term path for marketplace affordability. He criticized Democratic proposals to simply extend the existing enhanced tax credits, saying the subsidies ultimately benefit insurers and that allowing them to expire would expose underlying problems with the law.
"Just in my state, we took a six-year snapshot. The ObamaCare marketplaces went up 198 percent during that time period. Normal insurance, commercial insurance for everybody else went up 29 percent during that time period," Lankford said, citing sharp premium differences he attributes to the law.
He added, "There are real structural problems in ObamaCare that had just been hidden with one subsidy after another after another to try to hide the problems that are there." Lankford framed the debate as one between short-term subsidy extensions and longer-term structural reform.
Lawmakers from both parties have debated whether to extend the enhanced tax credits passed during the pandemic or to pursue Republican-crafted alternatives. With the expiration deadline approaching, the dispute has raised political stakes for members of the majority party and underscored competing views on how best to control premiums and stabilize the ACA marketplaces.
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