By Olivia Beavers

WASHINGTON -- A middle-of-the-night deal back in early July shows just how strongly some Republicans don't want to extend the expired Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Hours before the Republican-led House narrowly passed President Trump's "big beautiful" tax bill without any Democratic votes , the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) made a series of concessions to win over GOP hard-liners. One was a promise to House Freedom Caucus members to oppose a "clean" extension -- meaning one with no changes -- of the enhanced ACA health-insurance credits, according to people with knowledge of the agreement.

That issue is now front and center on Capitol Hill and dividing the Republican Party. Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, bypassed Johnson to force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the ACA subsidies, which benefit more than 20 million people. The bill then passed Thursday evening on a vote of 230-196, with 17 Republicans who mostly represent competitive districts siding with Democrats.

The proposal isn't expected to become law, but it could provide momentum for continuing talks in the Senate centered on a two-year extension paired with income caps to limit eligibility as well as provisions designed to crack down on fraud.

The vote underlined how some centrist Republicans, concerned about constituents facing sharp cost increases and worried about a possible blue wave in the midterms, are willing to break with their party. No Republican voted for the original ACA nor its expansion in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We were left with no other alternative but to advance a three-year clean bill, which we don't think is good policy," Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) said in an interview on Wednesday. "We think there should be antifraud mechanisms or should be income caps, but the only thing worse than the three-year clean is doing nothing."

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a three-year extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies would add about $80 billion to federal deficits.

According to people familiar with the July deal, James Braid, director of legislative affairs at the White House, communicated with members of the House Freedom Caucus. Once the agreement was brokered with Braid and the holdouts, Johnson also blessed the deal, one of the people said.

The pledge related to the ACA, which hasn't been previously reported, came alongside promises from the administration to further reel back former President Joe Biden's green energy agenda.

Trump, meanwhile, has also heavily criticized the ACA, while advocating for direct payments to Americans. After his administration began crafting his own healthcare framework, the plans were quickly scrapped after news of his proposal leaked to various news outlets and spurred GOP backlash behind the scenes in late November.

"The President has been clear that he believes the money in question should go directly to people to buy their own healthcare rather than to big insurance companies to pad their bottom line," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in response to requests about the July deal.

The speaker's office declined to comment on private conversations.

Johnson has been caught in a tug-of-war between factions of his own GOP conference, which is split over how to address the tax credits that expired on Dec. 31. He has regularly criticized the ACA and declined to allow a clean ACA-subsidies vote on the floor, which prompted Democrats led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) to move to circumvent him.

Last month, Johnson led House Republicans in passing a package of healthcare proposals that didn't include extending enhanced ACA subsidies. Johnson also previously warned Trump against endorsing a renewal of the subsidies, arguing that they lacked enough support in the House.

Some Republicans grumble that the GOP centrists are undercutting the party.

"It just shows you got people voting against this president's wishes," said Rep. Ralph Norman (R., S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers is separately crafting its own plan that would extend and narrow the tax credits for two years, but it has yet to be put to a vote. A clean three-year extension fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate in a previous attempt, with only four Republican senators voting with Democrats to open debate on the legislation.

Conservatives argue that extending the tax credits will further compound the failures of the 2010 ACA health law, which they say has failed to contain prices for consumers while also enriching big health insurers. But House Republicans who are in tough re-election fights, known as front-liners, contend that an extension is vital to their party's chances of winning the midterms later this year. Republicans have a narrow 218-213 majority currently.

An ACA extension could give the party more time to come up with ways to fix and improve the program, front-liners argue, while avoiding sharply higher monthly insurance bills for voters.

Write to Olivia Beavers at Olivia.Beavers@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 08, 2026 18:19 ET (23:19 GMT)

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