Congress races against 3-week deadline to tackle massive year-end legislative agenda
Congress will return to Washington, D.C., next week entering into a dead sprint to wrap up work before the year’s end, to cap off a blistering, often dramatic year on...
By Fox News · Fox News
Congress will return to Washington, D.C., next week entering into a dead sprint to wrap up work before the year’s end, to cap off a blistering, often dramatic year on the Hill. Both chambers will have three working weeks before again fleeing from the growing chill in Washington to their respective districts and states. And lawmakers have some of the biggest challenges of the year left to finish. Perhaps the biggest looming legislative fight will be how lawmakers approach the expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies , which dominated the recently-ended government shutdown. SENATE REPUBLICANS, DEMS BLOCK DUELING ATTEMPTS TO REPEAL CONTROVERSIAL ARCTIC FROST PROVISION Neither side has produced a fulsome plan on how to tackle the subsidies, though some solutions from Republicans, like funneling the subsidy funding into Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), have been floated. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged last week that producing a solution would be a steep hurdle, and reiterated his commitment to Senate Democrats that they would get a vote on whatever proposal they produce no later than the second week in December. Thune noted that "the one thing that unites" the GOP is the belief that the subsidies need to be reformed and that rising healthcare costs need to be dealt with. "I think the affordability issue is a big issue," Thune said. "I think it's been exacerbated by the way that Obamacare has been structured through the years, including the way that enhanced subsidies were structured by going directly to insurance companies and incentivizing them to enroll people without their knowledge." And the White House also has its own plan, which was expected to be rolled out earlier this week, but sidelined over reportedly disgruntled Republicans who disliked the proposed language. When asked about specifics of the plan, and it was scrapped, a White House official told Fox News Digital that "there was never a healthcare announcement listed on [Monday's] daily…