Speaker Mike Johnson battles with GOP centrists over expiring health care subsidies

By Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson is facing a possible revolt from a small bloc of GOP centrists this week over the looming expiration of Covid-era Obamacare subsidies — which will spike premiums for tens of millions of Americans in 2026.

In Congress’ final work week of 2025, GOP leaders are prepared to allow the enhanced subsidies to expire, arguing that the federal dollars are helping to prop up a failing system.

But multiple Republican centrists — led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Jen Kiggans of Virginia — are determined to prevent that outcome, warning it will hurt tens of millions of Americans while backfiring politically on the party.

Now, some of those members insist they’re willing to go to battle against Johnson to bring their own plan up for a vote, while hoping it will put enough pressure on the Senate to send it all the way to President Donald Trump’s desk.

It’s all amounting to a politically combustible final week of the year in the US Capitol, with tensions soaring among House Republicans. The centrists argue that Johnson has offered zero options for their party to deal with the looming health care disaster, despite Republicans controlling all of Washington.

“It’s our own leadership’s fault,” one person involved in the talks told CNN. “We have given them so many off ramps.”

But GOP leaders do not plan to offer the centrists their vote without addressing a major issue: How to pay for that plan. And it’s raising questions about what those frustrated centrists might do next — including whether they’re willing to team up with Democrats to force the issue in another way.

Top Democrats, meanwhile, are not budging from their own stance – a call for a three year extension of the subsidies – refusing to endorse the other bipartisan compromises on the table.

Some GOP centrists are so frustrated with their own leadership that they are going rogue as they attempt to land a floor vote for their Obamacare subsidies proposal. They will make a public push on Tuesday as they try to force the House Rules Committee, a panel that is effectively controlled by the speaker, to agree to hold a vote on their plan, which includes an extension of the subsidies along with stricter income caps and other ways to prevent fraud. (Roughly a dozen centrists have signed onto the idea.)

“Our side said, ‘Hey, we didn’t vote for those. It’s not our fault that these things are skyrocketing.’ But we are in charge. When you’re in charge, you got to deal with it,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a retiring centrist from Nebraska who supports a bipartisan support to extend the subsidies with reforms.

Instead, House GOP leaders will offer a more narrow health care package, which has been described as a “greatest hits” of conservative health policy in the last decade. But it does not include any immediate fix to the looming premium hike.

“It’s disappointing. I really am disappointed. I really think it behooves the speaker to put the bill on the floor. If it fails, it fails,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey told CNN, asked about the speaker’s plans to not offer a vote on extending the subsidies.

Across the Capitol, a small bipartisan group of senators huddled Monday night to discuss the subsidies issue. But the group was tight-lipped as members departed, with no sense of whether they

“I am not going to get into the details of what is being discussed, other than it’s good, substantive, productive conversation,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters.

“There’s enough people on both sides that want to come up with a solution so we’re going to work on that and see if we can make that happen,” added Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. “This place – when it’s set up properly – can move at the speed of light.”

The House centrist group didn’t always plan on challenging Johnson so publicly. As recently as this weekend, GOP leaders and a small group of GOP centrists believed they had a path forward to avoiding floor drama.

That tentative deal between House GOP leaders and Republican centrists collapsed in the last 48 hours. Johnson and his leadership team had initially agreed to offer those GOP centrists a floor vote on their proposal: a bipartisan push to extend the Covid-era subsidies but with key reforms, such as income caps, according to a person involved in the discussions.

But party leaders and GOP centrists failed to agree on the exact contours of the centrists’ amendment, such as whether it should be paid for or whether it should include stricter anti-abortion language, that person said. Party leaders also wanted the centrists to pull back from their separate efforts on a discharge petition — a procedural tool that can force floor votes, against the speaker’s wishes, with help from Democrats.

GOP leaders were planning to tuck language killing that discharge petition into a procedural vote, known as a rule, later this week. But enough centrists vowed they would oppose that rule that Johnson was forced to retreat from his plans.

There’s another break-glass option for Republicans: They can sign onto a Democratic leader bill to extend the subsidies — with none of the reforms that GOP centrists want.

Just four Republicans would need to sign onto House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ three-year extension plan (That plan costs $83 billion, while enrolling 6 million more people in the Obamacare marketplace, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Bacon, however, said he would not support that possibility.

“I do think Hakeem and his leadership team would rather not have a fix. They’d rather run on us here,” Bacon said

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CNN’s Ted Barrett, Arlette Saenz and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.