House passes bill to extend Obamacare subsidies this year?
Healthcare is a football in U.S. partisan warfare.
Premium Pain
Traders on Kalshi are watching whether the House will move this year to extend the enhanced ACA premium tax credits before they expire on Dec. 31. The credits, expanded in 2021 and extended once already, will vanish without new legislation.
The shutdown that began Oct. 1 adds another complication: floor time is limited and the majority controls the calendar, with politics, not healthcare, on its mind. The central question is not public support for the subsidies but whether House leadership sees reason to trade.
Follow the market: House passes bill to extend Obamacare subsidies this year? on Kalshi
Who’s Got The Leverage
The shutdown fight has already set the lines, and is inseparable from the subsidy fight. Democrats tried to tie an ACA extension to short-term funding and got no Republican support. Republicans pushed a clean bill and refused to negotiate. The GOP leadership has expressed no interest in a deal. From their perspective, they hold all the cards (and practically speaking, they do).
But Democrats are driving up the political cost. The average out-of-pocket hit if the enhanced credits lapse is severe, and the claim that consumers would pay about 79 percent more was rated mostly true. There is a very real subsidy cliff facing states.
The vote that matters is in the House. The House passed a stopgap without the extension; the Senate blocked it, and then government shut down. Both sides are now dug in for what many expect to be a longer-than-usual shutdown - we covered the duration previously:
