COLUMBUS, Ohio — Three Republican U.S. representatives from Ohio defied President Donald Trump and joined the Democrats in voting to restore expired Affordable Care Act subsidies.
The clock has been ticking for Congress to address the rising healthcare costs as insurance premiums are already increasing for some Ohioans on ACA, or Obamacare, plans.
Despite Democrats fighting for the subsidies, which led to the government shutdown in the fall, Congress let them expire at the end of 2025.
But on Thursday evening, a group of Republicans broke with Trump and helped pass a Democratic bill that would revive the tax credits for three years.
"I've been telling our House leadership that we need to address this because this is gonna be a problem, and they refused to address it," Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce (OH-14) said.
Joyce, from Geagua County, was one of the seventeen Republicans who joined Democrats. It wasn't his ideal plan, he said, but he wanted to help provide stability.
"All we're doing is kicking a failed system down the road for a little bit longer, but we can't punish the people at home just because the people in D.C. can't come to a decision and fix the problem," Joyce said.
Republican U.S. Reps. Max Miller (OH-7) and Mike Carey (OH-15) also broke ranks.
"The partisan Obamacare system as it exists has raised costs for everyone, but I want to give Ohioans certainty as we work to unravel the higher costs Americans face from the failed policies of the past," Carey, representing parts of the Columbus suburbs, said in a statement.
Miller, from the western suburbs of Cleveland, helped push the legislation to a vote. Speaker Mike Johnson had refused to bring the bill to the floor, but Miller signed the Democrats' discharge petition prior to his yes vote on the legislation.
"Obamacare has failed, but pulling the rug out from under Ohio families without an alternative would be irresponsible," Miller, who was traveling and couldn't do an interview, said in a thread on X.
But U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (OH-5) and the rest of the six Republicans held the party line and voted against extending the benefit. He was traveling on Friday, but previously, he told us that he knew the system had to change, but what the Democrats want was too expensive.
"They want $1.5 trillion, and now they're saying the federal debt's gonna be going up to $38 trillion," Latta, who represents much of Northwest Ohio and also Lorain County, said in November.
We reached out to each Republican representative; many were busy, but the team of U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-4) sent along an interview he did with Newsmax. In it, he said he thought it was a bad deal and didn't make sense financially.
But Democratic U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes (OH-13) was grateful to her colleagues for their support.
"The majority of the Ohio delegation in the House voted for this, and so hopefully that helps our senators support this as well, but this is just the first step," Sykes, from Akron, said.
We reached out to the Democratic representatives, as well. U.S. Reps. Joyce Beatty (OH-3), Shontel Brown (OH-11) and Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) all applauded the vote.
"I hope that with my vote, assuming the Senate can pass something, half a million people will find their lives less burdened with worry about health insurance cost," Kaptur, from Northwest Ohio, said.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where Republicans have been more vocal against it.
U.S. Senator Jon Husted's team told us that he "remains willing to consider any good faith negotiations that include a crackdown on the fraud in the system that is wasting taxpayer dollars."
Joyce told us that U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno, who didn't respond to comment, was working on a deal.
Kaptur said that the GOP "better not" force a government shutdown if they can't come up with an acceptable plan, but she is hopeful a deal can be reached.
"I'm looking for some senators that actually care about the country... Don't hold this up anymore," she said. "It's been too worrisome for people who are hanging in the balance."
She is also concerned about her three Republican colleagues, ones who helped pass the bill.
"What happens when this ends up not passing the Senate — was it worth it to break from the president and potentially get a target put on you?" I asked Joyce.
"I represent the people of the 14th district proudly, and I will continue to do that," Joyce said. "And people of Northeast Ohio know that I've got their backs."
"You have their backs, not GOP leadership," I responded.
"I don't work for leadership, they didn't put me in," Joyce said. "The people in the 14th District put me here, and I represent them, and I'll do it to the best of my God-given ability until they tell me no more."
When asked about facing backlash, the representative said that he needed to vote the way he did.
"This is real... This is a big problem, and they didn't want to address it," Joyce said about House leadership. "And if this is what it takes for them to finally dunk their head in the water and realize, 'We got a problem here,' well, then, I'm glad I did it."
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