The Senate delivered a major blow to Democrat leadership Thursday night after rejecting Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s last-minute attempt to extend expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, subsidies Democrats themselves voted to terminate in Joe Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022.
The subsidies are set to expire on December 31, 2025 because Democrats wrote the expiration date into their own bill. Yet now, as the political consequences close in, Schumer is scrambling to pin the blame on Republicans.
The Senate rejected the Democrat bill to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing the subsidies will lapse on December 31. The final vote was 51–48, far short of the 60 votes required.
A competing Republican bill drafted by Sens. Bill Cassidy and Mike Crapo also failed after Democrats united to block it, with Sen. Rand Paul joining Democrats in opposition.
The result? No extension, no deal, and Schumer’s caucus left holding the bag for a crisis entirely of their own making.
But instead of owning it, Schumer launched into a nearly five-minute tirade, blaming everyone but the Democrats who voted these subsidies into oblivion back in 2022.
Chuck Schumer:
Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues refused to do what they should have done.
I want everyone here to understand just what happened on the Senate floor.
Senate Republicans just shoved the American people off the side of a cliff with no parachute and with an anchor tied to their feet.
Republicans just blocked the Democrats’ bill for a clean, simple extension of the ACA tax credits.
This was the last chance they had to ensure people’s premiums do not skyrocket in the coming months. Democrats did the work, but now Republicans chose the consequences. Republicans have now all but guaranteed that tens of millions of people will see their premiums double or triple, or even more, next year.
Republicans now own America’s healthcare crisis. Democrats tried all year to stop this healthcare crisis.
We put real legislation on the floor to ensure these tax credits do not expire. And Republicans blocked it — not once, not twice, but thirteen times throughout the year. Thirteen times they voted against our extensions of the ACA credits. Thirteen times. We tried over and over again. We tried one year, two years, three years — we tried everything. They kept saying no. And of course, Republicans had every opportunity to negotiate, to join us, or to propose a serious plan to prevent premiums from rising after January 1. Instead, today Republicans voted down the only plan that would have stopped the premium spikes while having no plan of their own.
Until a few days ago, they had no plan at all to put on the floor. They were so embarrassed they had no plan that they said they would put a little bubble gum and scotch tape together and produce a ridiculous, phony plan that simply helps the insurance companies. It was a right-wing wishlist: more junk insurance, fewer protections, restrictions on women’s healthcare. Their plan — their junk insurance plan — has been ridiculed over and over and over again.
And it couldn’t even pass the Republican Senate.
Today, our proposal actually got more votes than theirs. Our proposal had a majority, and it was bipartisan — theirs was not. After today’s vote, the American healthcare crisis is now 100 percent on Republican shoulders.
On January 1, premiums are going to go up. All of us have had people crying in front of us, in our arms, saying: What are they going to do when they cut off the money that pays for my daughter’s cancer treatment? What am I going to do when they tell me that my dad or mom is going to be kicked out of their nursing home, which will close as a result? What am I going to do when I have to change doctors — doctors I’ve worked with for years — who are helping treat a disease my spouse has?
Coverage has become much harder to afford, and families are facing impossible, horrible choices.
Republicans own every bit of it because of the way they voted today. Shameful. Shame on them.
So many of them seem to be in a bubble. We know Trump is in a bubble when he calls affordability a “hoax” and says he doesn’t want to do anything to help people with healthcare. They’re in a bubble too. The suffering people are going to endure is enormous and heart-wrenching.
How can Republicans look themselves in the mirror knowing they have to go back home and tell people over the holidays: I voted to send your premiums up. Are they going to tell their constituents they voted to double their monthly premiums? Are they going to tell their constituents they voted to kick them off insurance? Are they going to tell their constituents: I voted to make you sick and go broke?
Because that is what Republicans did by blocking a clean extension of the tax credits.
When families open their health insurance bills in January and see the sky-high premiums staring back at them, they will know — the American people will know — that Democrats fought to stop these hikes, and Republicans fought to guarantee that they happen. Republicans blocked the solution. They blocked the backup solution. They blocked any negotiations, no matter how hard we tried.
And now the next chapter begins.
Republicans will have to answer to the American people and explain why they chose higher healthcare costs over real solutions. Republicans must answer why people will lose coverage. Republicans must answer why families will see premiums double and triple over the next year.
Democrats’ focus does not change. We fought to stop these hikes, and we are going to continue to fight to bring costs down for the American people — on healthcare, on housing, on electric rates, on groceries. But Republicans are fighting to send those costs through the roof. They are fighting to kick people off insurance. They are fighting to cut taxes and give sweet giveaways to billionaires and the ultra-rich.
January 1 is coming. Republicans are responsible for what happens next. This is their crisis now, and they will have to answer for it.
WATCH:
.@SenSchumer: “Senate Republicans just shoved the American people off the side of a cliff with no parachute and with an anchor tied to their feet…Republicans now own America’s health care crisis.” pic.twitter.com/68hAqWOnaw
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 11, 2025
Democrats locked the subsidy expiration date into law in 2022.
They knew this would happen.
They planned for it to happen.
They voted for it to happen.
Now, in an election year—Schumer is trying to retroactively pretend Republicans created a crisis that Democrats engineered from the beginning.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt eviscerated Chuck Schumer, calling out his sudden, performative concern over health-care costs.
“Why hasn’t Chuck Schumer ever come out in support of [Most Favored Nations drug pricing]? Those are going to legitimately, they already are lower drug prices for the American people, and not a WORD from Chuck Schumer on it.”
“If Chuck Schumer actually wanted to lower health care costs, I’m sure the President would welcome him and his entire Democrat caucus to a legitimate coordination on the president’s policies of bringing down down drug prices, these most favored nation deals. So I think that just proves this is completely political!”
Recall that in 2014, Chuck Schumer himself admitted Obamacare was a mistake and confessed that Democrats sold out the middle class to get it passed.
The post Schumer Erupts After Senate Blocks Democrat Bill to Extend Expiring Obamacare Subsidies — Desperately Blames Republicans for the Disaster Democrats Created appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.