Senate Majority Leader John Thune and two other people familiar with internal conference discussions didn’t rule out a vote on a GOP health care plan next week but would not commit to that timing.

“We’ll see what the Dems want to put up,” Thune said Monday. “There’s obviously something that we could put up as a side-by-side, neither of which would probably get 60 [votes to advance], but I think in the end you would like to see if there’s a path forward on something that could merge.”

Some Senate Republicans don’t see the point in forcing a symbolic vote on a GOP counterproposal.

“I don’t want to take a vote just for the heck of it,” said Mullin, who spoke with Trump about health care last week. ”If we’re going to vote, let’s make sure we do something that’s going to be productive.”

Health care is expected to be the dominant topic at both Senate party lunches Tuesday. Democrats will use the closed-door meeting to talk through their options, which include offering a “clean” extension of the ACA subsidies — which few Republicans support — or an extension paired with GOP-favored eligibility restrictions as an olive branch to conservatives.

Senate Republicans are facing their own dilemma — and internal divisions — over which approach to take. Some, like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have backed an extension of the subsidies, but a chunk of the Senate GOP conference, to say nothing of their counterparts in the House, want to end the subsidies cold turkey.

Many Republicans, including Cassidy, are focused on alternatives that would structure federal health care subsidies around health savings accounts, an idea that Trump has also endorsed. But lawmakers agree there is virtually no time to develop and implement such a system before the existing subsidies expire, leading some Republicans to favor a temporary extension.

Murkowski said she is “very hopeful” about the bipartisan talks underway but acknowledged the time pressure: “The calendar is not necessarily our friend right now.”

Nor, for now, is Trump, who appears to be sitting on the sidelines even as some congressional Republicans are begging him to get involved and sketch out a health care plan that could help unite and energize GOP factions in the House and Senate.

The president appeared poised to roll out a plan late last month that would extend the ACA subsidies with an income cap and other eligibility restrictions. But the White House scuttled that plan amid a mountain of GOP backlash.

“I think without White House leadership, we’re not going to have a well received product,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has backed a temporary extension. “If we produce something in the Senate, it won’t be well received in the house unless the president works his magic, which he’s very capable of doing.”

Thune said Monday he doesn’t believe the White House is “advocating for advancing anything at the moment,” while making the point that health care talks could continue past next week’s votes. Lawmakers increasingly view Jan. 30 — the next government funding deadline — as the real cutoff for a health care deal.

“I think there’s, you know, groundwork being laid that could end up in actually something getting done,” he said. “I just don’t know if it can get done by next week. That’d be a pretty heavy lift.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans are on a separate track altogether, with party leaders looking to assemble a suite of health care bills from three committees — Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Workforce. Their plan is less about making law, which would require buy-in from Senate Democrats, and more about showing voters that Republicans have plans to address rising health care costs.

Under pressure from unhappy GOP centrists, House leaders are tentatively planning to put legislation on the floor before the chamber’s scheduled Dec. 18 departure for the holiday recess. But that could change. The Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce panels are holding listening sessions with Republican members this week, indicating their plans remain in development.

“We want to get it done as soon as we are ready to get it passed,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a brief interview Monday.

Some GOP chairs raised questions and made messaging suggestions on health care during a leadership meeting Monday with Scalise, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the private conversation. One of the people added that there’s still “not a lot of direction” from Republican leaders on the topic, and even conservative Republicans are rankled that no firm proposals are being circulated widely inside the conference with just 11 scheduled session days remaining in the year.

“We’re nowhere on health care,” said one senior House Republican who was granted anonymity to candidly describe the situation.

Republican leaders are also under pressure from some House GOP centrists who are threatening to use a discharge petition to effectively force a subsidy extension bill to the floor.

One of those centrists, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, said Monday he has spoken with the White House about a bill he is working on and shopping around to colleagues, which would largely mirror Trump’s unreleased framework.

“It’s one of those things where nobody’s going to love it,” Fitzpatrick said. “But hopefully enough people are okay with it.”

Crazy how MAGA is ignoring this

>>1462065
They put themselves in a no win scenario. Either they extend the credits, meaning the shutdown was completely pointless and Dems get what they wanted anyway, or they don't and deal with the massive backlash from healthcare prices spiking just in time for midterms. They should've just let Dems extend them 3 months ago and made it bipartisan.

>>1462074
Democrats won't get shit. The subsidies didn't do anything to keep prices down anyway. What difference does an unaffordable plan vs an even more unaffordable plan make

>>1462065
They made a huge deal about not wanting to do it when they still had ample time. It was the selling point of their """"""clean""""" CR during the shutdown (you know, the one that bans hemp and gives republican congressmen $500,000 each because their phone records were subpoenaed in court that one time). This is entirely on them, and they should stop pretending it's not.

>>1462083
Oh? Are they not spiking in price as soon as they end? Hmmm, odd, for something that doesn't keep prices down, the price sure seems to go up when they end. Must be a coincidence.

>>1462083
Insurance for me next year would more than triple what I was paying under the Brandon regime, and I’m a perfectly healthy 30 year old male

>>1462083
The prices spiking under trump disagree. Your lies don't work when they directly affect people.
Just like saying things are still affordable when prices have skyrocketed, or the trump virus was harmless when it killed a million plus.

>>1462091
It's hard for them to know about that from Bangladesh.

>>1462091
>Your lies don't work when they directly affect people.
Democrats said Trump's '16 economy was actually Obama's doing, which also means Trump's '24 run is Biden's fault.

>>1462120
What the fuck are you talking about?

>>1462088
>I’m a perfectly healthy 30 year old male
If you're really a perfectly healthy 30 year old male, you don't need insurance, Buttercup.

Or better yet, you can get a real job and get insurance from there.

>>1462088
It was a temporary covid credit. Covid is done, back to your normally scheduled payment.

>>1462120
>Democrats said Trump's '16 economy was actually Obama's doing, which also means Trump's '24 run is Biden's fault.
Trump didn't have any major economic initiatives in 2017. In 2025 he did tariffs.

It's like comparing a runner winning a race with a runner losing a race because he was shot in the head by Trump feet before the finish line when they were in the lead. You can credit the runner for their win but blaming them for their loss is insane.

>>1462146
>If you're really a perfectly healthy 30 year old male, you don't need insurance, Buttercup.

So is your plan to remain magically perfectly healthy and 30 years old for the next seven decades? Or do you assume that if cancer or something random catches up yo you that you should be in a position to rely on whatever corporation you work for to support you?

>>1462149
It's going to make healthcare unaffordable for tens of millions of Americans. Not even most Republicans want that except for the fiscal hawks.

I don't get any of this. Trump ran on a platform with three specific promises:
1) Lock up crooked Hillary
2) Build a wall and ake Mexico pay for it
3) Scrap Obamacare and replace it with aq better system that covers more Americans and costs less.

Did he lie to us?

>>1462149
It wasn't this expensive before, retard.

>>1462158
He also campaigned on a strong anti-war policy promising to not drag the US into more pointless foreign wars. It's hard to tell if that was a lie from the get go, or he just changed his mind mid way. Either way, he certainly didn't campaign on changing the Ministry of Defense into the Ministry of War. Was that changed planned all along, or just something he randomly decided to do in the middle of the night on a whim? Which is worse?

>>1462163
Don't forget trump already tried to start a war with Iran.

>>1462163
I wouldn't be surprised if renaming it to Department of War was just something Hegseth thought would be manly since he wants to see lots of big burly manly men.

>>1462158
>Did the lifelong habitual liar lie to us?
lol