Seventeen House Republicans helped deliver Democrats a rare legislative victory on healthcare Thursday after voting to pass a three-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies opposed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
The outcome served as a rare rebuke of leadership and a display of how Democrats could exploit narrow House margins despite GOP control of Congress and the White House. Most Republicans oppose the tax credits, which expired at the end of 2025, but Democrats were able to force a vote on the House floor due to a crop of GOP members in purple districts.
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The bill, which passed 230-196, came to the floor through a discharge petition led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Ordinarily, the minority party cannot control what legislation gets a vote, but discharge petitions can force one if a majority of House members sign on.
In this case, four Republicans — Reps. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), and Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) — put the petition over the edge before lawmakers left for the Christmas recess, representing a rare act of defiance from majority party members. All four Republicans are in competitive districts, where their support for the subsidies could be crucial to surviving the 2026 midterm elections.
On Thursday, they were joined by a larger group of Republicans who were unwilling to break with leadership but privately wanted to extend the subsidies.
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Within that group were Republicans who sought last year to find a bipartisan compromise on the subsidies, with a flurry of cosponsorships on legislation aimed at limiting eligibility and addressing fraud. Ultimately, none of those proposals were able to garner the support of Democratic leadership, leaving the centrist Republicans to decide between a “clean” extension or no subsidies at all. The fate of the House bill is unclear in the Senate, but a bipartisan working group is seeking to build support for a more modest renewal.
In addition to Bresnahan, Fitzpatrick, Lawler, and Mackenzie, the other 13 House Republicans who voted with Democrats for the three-year extension were: Reps. Mike Carey (R-OH), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), María Elvira-Salazar (R-FL), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Jeff Hurd (R-CO), David Joyce (R-OH), Thomas Kean Jr. (R-NJ), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Max Miller (R-OH), Zach Nunn (R-IA), David Valadao (R-CA), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), and Rob Wittman (R-VA).