Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) wants to bring almost three dozen Republicans along for an Obamacare deal he and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) are negotiating with Democrats, an ambitious number that will make crafting bipartisan legislation that much more difficult.
“I have no interest in a bill that divides our conference, so we would have to have a bill that would, at a minimum, have the majority of our conference supporting it,” Moreno told the Washington Examiner in a brief interview.
“So that’s what we’re working on,” Moreno added. “We’re not interested in a defection bill, a bill that would have 13 Republicans join all Democrats. We want a bill that gets the majority of our conference. It doesn’t have to be all 53, by the way, but that would get something along the lines of 35 Republican votes.”
The path to getting bipartisan legislation accomplished has been complicated by the Hyde Amendment, an abortion restriction that Republicans want tightened as part of any subsidy deal.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) called that language the “most challenging part of this,” as Democrats regard abortion restrictions as a nonstarter, but it has emerged as a red line that, should Republicans prevail, could help build GOP support for the bill.
President Donald Trump, for his part, muddied that negotiating position on Tuesday, urging House Republicans at a Kennedy Center retreat to be “flexible” on abortion restrictions.
Thune sidestepped whether majority support was needed for Republicans to move ahead in the Senate, but he told reporters there would have to be considerable support for the enhanced subsidies. Thune’s comments came after he met with Moreno on Tuesday morning.
“I think there is potentially a path forward there, but it’s something that would have to get a big vote, and certainly a big vote among Republicans,” Thune said.
Negotiations over the subsidies, a Biden-era benefit that lapsed at the end of 2025, have faltered once before and were at the center of a 43-day government shutdown last year, the longest on record. But Moreno and Collins rekindled those talks before the Christmas recess and met again with a bipartisan group on Monday evening.
Moreno said a two-year extension of the subsidies, a framework that includes reforms to prevent fraud and limit eligibility, is the maximum Republicans are willing to allow without jeopardizing majority support.
“There’s no way to do more than two years,” Moreno said.
He also teased language, possibly cost-sharing reductions, that he said would be the “carrot” that brings along more Republican votes.
“There is something that we’re working on that’s actually really exciting,” Moreno said, “which would be a component of the reforms that would actually lower everybody on the exchanges’ premiums by about 11%, so that’s the carrot for us, is like, ‘Hey, look, you can solve this enhanced premium tax credit. You can put in place some reforms, and on top of that, be able to say we solved a big problem for everybody in the exchange by 11%,’ which is a sizable number. It’d be the first time we actually do that.”
Moreno and his colleagues believe there is a small window in which to strike a deal and have proposed a longer period for open enrollment to soften the blow of premium increases.
The group is hoping to use House legislation that extends the subsidies for three years as a shell that can be retooled at a later date. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) opposes that bill, as does Thune, but Democrats were able to tee up a Thursday vote using a legislative tool known as a discharge petition.
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“It already failed here, so we know that movie,” Moreno said. “But at least we have a vehicle to amend.”
Moreno said the negotiating group is in regular contact, citing rolling phone calls and impromptu meetings, but does not plan to brief Senate Republicans on their progress unless he sees the possibility of a deal that would satisfy most of his conference.