Congress’s punt ensures healthcare will remain a top issue in January — and ‘very likely through spring’

This past week saw a flurry of healthcare headlines from Capitol Hill but nothing close to finality on the issue. Lawmakers have headed home for the year, and President Trump remains behind a GOP-only approach that even members of his own party are distancing themselves from.

Perhaps the only seeming certainty: Expiring Obamacare subsidies mean millions of Americans will at least begin 2026 with higher premiums.

It also means, as Pangaea Policy’s Terry Haines put it in a recent note, “markets should expect a political risk whipsaw at least until [the end of] January, and very likely through spring.”

The focus on healthcare, of course, comes intertwined with the next looming shutdown deadline on Jan. 30.

Asked Thursday at the White House if he will intervene on the healthcare issue, Trump responded that premiums “will skyrocket” before again blaming Democrats for the impasse.

Yet it’s a Democratic plan that has some momentum heading into 2026 as the president faces deep disagreements within his own party on the issue.

The Democratic plan to force a vote on a bill to extend these subsidies for three years reached the required number of signers this week as four Republicans signed onto the discharge petition filed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“Something has to happen,” Columbia University health policy professor Meghan Fitzgerald said in a recent live appearance on Yahoo Finance, noting that higher premiums are affecting millions of lives (and potentially votes in 2026), “which is why I think you saw four Republicans buck the trend.”

But nothing appears set to happen this year. The House of Representatives is set to be out of session until Jan. 6, meaning House Speaker Mike Johnson is only likely to be forced to schedule a vote after lawmakers return.

Also this past week, the House passed a narrow GOP-only healthcare bill that doesn’t address the expiring subsidies and which even many Republicans say falls short.

The Congressional Budget Office found that the Republican plan could reduce premiums by 11% but may also mean that 300,000 additional people lose health insurance annually because of the changes. The Senate went home this week without taking up the bill.

On social media, Jeffries called the Republican plan “deeply unserious” and called for an immediate vote on the Democratic effort.

Also looming is the deadline for another shutdown on Jan. 30, when the major provisions to end 2025’s shutdown, the longest in US history, expire.

For now, Democratic senators have signaled an interest in keeping the healthcare and shutdown debates separate, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling Punchbowl News recently that “we’d like to get an appropriations bill done” and continue to negotiate healthcare separately.

But even government funding on its own could be a heavy lift for January with both parties — not to mention various wings of each party — far from compromise. Funding a range of departments, from the Pentagon to the Departments of Education, Transportation, and more, will be at issue.

The multitude of factors also already have oddsmakers talking.

Henrietta Treyz of Veda Partners estimates 25% odds of another shutdown, while Polymarket has a one-in-three chance. Haines is the highest with 60% odds.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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