Last week the Senate failed to extend subsidies for people buying health care on the Affordable Care Act Exchanges. This week?

Friday’s proposal from House Republicans includes measures that would allow small businesses to join together to buy insurance plans for their employees and put in place new requirements for pharmacy benefit managers in an effort to lower drug costs.

Starting in 2027, federal payments, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, would aim to lower premiums for some low-income Americans. Health plans that provide abortion coverage would be excluded.

A vote on the package is expected next week, House Speaker Mike Johnson said.

“House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation’s health care system for all Americans,” Johnson said in a statement.

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted the proposal Saturday.

“Mike Johnson just released a toxic Republican Healthcare plan that hurts everyday Americans,” Jeffries wrote on X. “It fails to extend the ACA tax credits that expire this month. And is a deeply unserious proposal.”

This is a joke. Sure, let employers buy together, but what does that do for people who are buying their own health insurance? The answer is nothing. For people like me, who buy their coverage at full price, this will mean not only do I get hit with higher 2026 premiums, but when millions drop their coverage in 2026, my premiums will skyrocket again in 2027. Health care costs the least when the most number of people are able to pay for their care, or are insured. House Republicans actively are plotting to harm that. Why? Some sort of stubborn insistence on free markets? I doubt it. They simply don’t want the government to provide anything, so they can cut taxes more for wealthy people. At this point, it’s clear their goal is no income taxes at all.

This did not have to happen. The decision by Chuck Schumer to send Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Angus King, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Jackie Rosen over to vote to end the government shutdown without even this small concession from Republicans will essentially do massive damage to the American health care system. If Republicans were going to re-open the government without these subsidies, Democrats should have forced them to end the filibuster to do it. Let them have the blood on their hands. Instead Democrats gave them a way out of their own mess, and we all know it was approved by their leader, because they gave just enough votes to get it done. Senate Democrats basically own this mess as much as Trump’s GOP, which is utterly embarrassing for a party whose crowning achievement of the last 20 years was a health care system that insured over 20 million people who were previously uninsured.

We really need to get rid of John Fetterman in 2028, by the way.