Category: Politics

(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans — led by Speaker Mike Johnson — unveiled Friday a narrow health care package to address rising costs, but the plan does not extend the expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The GOP proposal — which will receive a vote on the House floor sometime next week — would expand the availability of association health plans and what are known as “CHOICE arrangements”; impose new transparency requirements on pharmacy benefit managers to lower drug costs; and appropriate money for cost-sharing reductions to reduce premiums in the individual market.

Association health plans allow employers to band together to purchase coverage.

Notably, the 111-page measure would not funnel additional money into health savings accounts.

“While Democrats demand that taxpayers write bigger checks to insurance companies to hide the cost of their failed law, 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 Friday.

Republicans are also discussing staging a vote on an amendment to the health care package that would extend the ACA subsidies. The specifics of the amendment are still being discussed, according to GOP leadership aides.

The Rules Committee plans to mark up the bill at 2 p.m. on Tuesday. The House would then have to vote on an amendment related to extending the subsidies and then the underlying bill before sending it over to the Senate.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, President Donald Trump said he wants a health care plan that would directly funnel aid to patients, adding that money should be given to people for health care through an insurance account.

“I think what most Republicans want to see– what is what I want to see, and I leave it to them, and hopefully they’re going to put great legislation on this desk right here: we want to see all of the money that’s been squandered and given to insurance companies because Obamacare is horrible health insurance,” Trump said.

He added, “And we want the money to go to the people. They’ll go in the form of an insurance account, health care account, or any other form that we can create with a lot of different forms. We want to give the money to the people and let the people buy their own great health care, and they’ll save a lot of money, and it’ll be great,” he continued.

But Trump also kept the door open, slightly, on extending ACA tax credits, saying he was going to “look into” the possibility of doing so with the assurance that an extension deal would come with some caveats that Republicans want.

House GOP leadership aides hope to pass the health care package next week — the last legislative week of 2025 that the House is expected to be in session for. 

 “The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act will actually deliver affordable health care — and we look forward to advancing it through the House,” Johnson said.

Even if the measure does clear the House, the Senate is not likely to take any further major action on health care next week, leaving those enhanced premium subsidies all but certain to lapse.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the Republican proposal “toxic legislation” that doesn’t address the coming hike in ACA premiums.

“House Republicans are not serious about ending the healthcare crisis they have unleashed in this country,” Jeffries said in a statement. “After promising legislation for months, this 11th hour measure fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that tens of millions of Americans rely on to afford their healthcare.”

Jeffries said Democrats are willing to work with Republicans on extending the subsidies, saying: “We are ready to work with anyone in good faith on the other side of the aisle who wants to prevent the Affordable Care Act tax credits from expiring at the end of the month.”

Ahead of the measure being introduced Friday, nearly a dozen House Republicans had publicly defied Johnson by trying to force a vote on extending the expiring subsidies.

As of Thursday, 11 Republicans had signed on to two discharge petitions — one filed by a Republican and the other by a Democrat — that would extend the subsidies.

In the Senate, two competing health care proposals aimed at addressing the expected premium spikes — one championed by Democrats and the other by Republicans — failed to advance earlier this week.  

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(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Friday that the type of munitions used by the military in a Sept. 2 boat strike — including on survivors in a second strike — were “anti-personnel” and designed to ensure the people on board did not survive, not just stop the drug shipment.

In question has been whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to the military was to kill the people on board, stop the drug shipment — or both.

Warner, who has received classified briefings on the strike, also said that U.S. intelligence identified all 11 people on board and each person killed was linked to the drug trade, although the level of their involvement was unclear.

“It’s one thing to be a ‘narco-terrorist’ and another thing to be a fisherman that’s getting paid 100 bucks [who a] couple times a year, runs on one of these boats to supplement his income,” Warner said at a Defense Writers Group event, sponsored by George Washington University.

The Trump administration has defended the military operation as legal because it considers drug cartels “foreign terrorist organizations” that pose an imminent threat to Americans. Since Sept. 2, the military has launched 22 strikes against vessels accused of smuggling illicit narcotics, killing 87 people.

Many legal experts say President Donald Trump’s argument that criminal organizations selling drugs to Americans are “terrorists” is a stretch, although it will likely take months for a federal judge to weigh in.

Warner and other lawmakers have called on the administration to release the full video of the Sept. 2 strikes, which some Democrats have called a potential war crime because it killed two survivors. Lawmakers say they were told the military admiral who ordered the strike said they believed the survivors still posed a threat and were granted legal authority to kill them.  

Warner said he wants other documentation too, including the legal opinion that justified the Sept. 2 strike. Warner said the legal opinion shared with lawmakers in a classified briefing was drafted Sept. 5 — three days after the initial boat strike — and was not shared with Congress until late November.

“I have real questions … Was it altered between Sept. 2 and Sept. 5 because of some of the actions that took place?” he asked.

Warner said he is reluctant to call the Sept. 2 strikes a “war crime” until he has more information, and said he would like to see congressional hearings.

“I am very reluctant, unlike some of my folks, to get to assertions of illegality by Americans or war crimes, because once you make that claim, you can’t take it back,” he said. “And what it would do to morale, what it would do to how Americans view our military, what it would do to how the world views us, is really chilling.”

Hegseth has not held a press briefing to answer questions about the campaign since it begun and he has not testified publicly.

He has defended the administration’s efforts to attack alleged drug boats.

“We’ve only just begun striking narcoboats and putting narcoterrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” he said at a Cabinet meeting earlier this month.

Hegseth has also expressed support for Adm. Mitch Bradley, the four-star officer who ordered the Sept. 2 military strikes, and his decision that day.

“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat. And it was the right call. We have his back,” Hegseth added.

Bradley is being asked by lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill next week to testify.

An aide to the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, said the panel is working to arrange a classified briefing for its members.

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(WASHINGTON) — The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the privately funded nonprofit designated by Congress to protect historic sites, is suing in an attempt to stop the construction of the White House ballroom.

In a complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for DC, the organization is asking for the project to be stopped until it completes the federal review process standard for federal building projects and seeks public comment on the proposed changes.

“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever—not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,” the complaint said. “And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the opportunity to weigh in.”

“President Trump’s efforts to do so should be immediately halted, and work on the Ballroom Project should be paused until the Defendants complete the required reviews—reviews that should have taken place before the Defendants demolished the East Wing, and before they began construction of the Ballroom—and secure the necessary approvals,” the complaint continued.

In its complaint, the Trust argues that the project has not been filed with the National Capital Planning Commission as required by law; that it began without an environmental assessment or impact statement as required by the National Environmental Policy Act; and that the construction was not authorized by Congress.

The White House has continued to defend the construction of the ballroom.

“President Trump has full legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House — just like all of his predecessors did,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said on Friday.

The White House has previously attacked the Trust, saying it is run by “a bunch of loser Democrats and liberal donors who are playing political games.”

It has also argued that the nature of the project on the White House grounds does not require congressional approval, an assertion the Trust is challenging in its lawsuit.

News of the lawsuit was first reported by the Washington Post.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump claimed that he is granting a “full pardon” to Tina Peters, a former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk who was sentenced to nine years on state-level charges for election interference during the 2020 election.

However, the president does not have jurisdiction over state charges, and Colorado officials are pushing back, contending that the president’s promise of a pardon is unconstitutional. Trump’s announcement, which he made on social media Thursday, now likely sets up a legal battle for Peters, who has been seeking a pardon from Trump.

Peters was convicted in August 2024 for giving an individual affiliated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump ally, access to the election software she used for her county. Screenshots of the software appeared on right-wing websites that promoted false theories that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

Despite President Trump’s repeated assertions that the election was rigged, there were no proven cases of major fraud that affected the outcome.

Trump has repeatedly called for Peters to be released from her nine-year sentence, and on Thursday night said on social media that he was “granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”

“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” he said.

Trump’s announcement came as the administration attempted to move Peters to federal custody in order to have more jurisdiction over her. The move was denied by the courts.

In August, the president said in a social media post that if Peters wasn’t released, he would “take harsh measures.”

Colorado officials, however, questioned Trump’s authority over Peters’ conviction and pushed back against his claims.

“One of the most basic principles of our constitution is that states have independent sovereignty and manage our own criminal justice systems without interference from the federal government,” Colorado Attorney General Phill Weiser said in a statement Thursday.

“The idea that a president could pardon someone tried and convicted in state court has no precedent in American law, would be an outrageous departure from what our constitution requires, and will not hold up,” he added.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold added that Peters “was convicted by a jury of her peers for state crimes in a state Court. Trump has no constitutional authority to pardon her.”

“His assault is not just on our democracy, but on states’ rights and the American Constitution,” she said in a statement.

As of Friday morning, no legal action has been taken against the Trump Administration over the president’s announcement.

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(WASHINGTON) — As House Speaker Mike Johnson eyes a vote next week on a to-be-announced health care package, a growing number of House Republicans are revolting against leadership by trying to force a vote on extending the expiring Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies.

Nearly a dozen Republicans — many from swing districts — have signed onto dueling bipartisan discharge petitions to extend and reform the subsidies in the hopes of bypassing leadership and triggering a vote on the House floor. 

This move comes as the subsidies are set to expire at the end of the month, which will prompt health premiums for more than 20 million Americans to soar. 

While Johnson has not yet unveiled the specifics of his plan, an extension of the ACA subsidies is currently not expected to be included in the package. Johnson said the bill will “probably” be unveiled over the weekend ahead of next week’s anticipated vote. 

The speaker and GOP leaders, during a closed door meeting this week, provided Republicans a list of several options to address health care costs, according to multiple sources. Some of those options, sources said, include Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), cost-sharing reductions and making changes to pharmacy benefit managers. 

Lawmakers told ABC News they left that meeting with no clear consensus on how to address health care.

“You’re going to see a package come together that will be on the floor next week that will actually reduce premiums for 100% of Americans who are on health insurance,” Johnson said at his weekly news conference. “The overall system is broken, and we’re the ones that are going to fix it.” 

A group of mainly moderate Republicans, though, want to see the subsidies addressed by Congress before the expiration date. 

The discharge petitions would need 218 signatures for a vote to occur in the House, and it’s unclear if enough Democrats will provide their support to reach that threshold.

Most House Democrats have signed onto another petition led by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to extend the subsidies for three years. 

Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania filed a discharge petition that would extend the subsidies for two years, establish income caps for enrollees and regulate pharmacy benefit managers.

New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer filed a separate but similar bipartisan discharge petition to extend the subsidies with reforms. 

As of Thursday, 11 Republicans had signed on to both discharge petitions.

Johnson threw cold water on the efforts by vulnerable Republicans hoping to hold a vote on the subsidies. 

“We’re working on a package of legislation that will reduce premiums for all Americans, not just 7% of them,” he said. 

Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who supports both discharge petitions, warned about the impacts not extending the subsidies will have on the midterm election for Republicans.  

“I think it will be used like a sledgehammer a year from now. The reality will be bad,” he said. 

Bacon said if Congress fails to act, “all our constituents are going to be paying a lot more for their premiums and that’s unacceptable.” 

In the Senate, meanwhile, two competing health care proposals aimed at addressing the expected premium spikes — one championed by Democrats and the other by Republicans — failed to advance on Thursday, leaving the Senate back at square one.

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(WASHINGTON) — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem found herself in the hot seat on Capitol Hill on Thursday, defending herself from Democrats who sharply questioned the Trump administration’s hardline immigration actions.

In one notable exchange, Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., asked Noem if DHS had deported any military veterans — and she said the department has not. 

Magaziner then referred to a tablet with a man named Sae Joon Park on the screen, joining the hearing by Zoom.

Magaziner said Park is a Purple Heart recipient who was shot twice while serving with the U.S. Army in Panama in 1989, who was deported to Korea by the Trump administration.

“Like many veterans, he struggled with PTSD and substance abuse after his service,” Magaziner said. “He was arrested in the 1990s for some minor drug offenses, nothing serious. He never hurt anyone besides himself, and he’s been clean and sober for 14 years.”

When asked if she would thank Park for his service, Noem responded to the congressman, “Sir, I’m grateful for every single person that has served our country and follows our laws.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson later said Magaziner failed to mention that Park had a criminal history, although the congressman did address that in his remarks. 

“In 2010 an immigration judge issued him an order of removal. Park’s appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals that same month was dismissed by the Board in April 2011,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. “With no legal basis to remain in the U.S. and a final order of removal, Park was allowed to self-deport to Korea.”

In response to a question from Magaziner, Noem committed to reviewing Park’s case.

Magaziner also introduced a military veteran named Jim Brown, from Troy, Missouri, who was sitting in the gallery behind Noem. Browns’s wife — a native of Ireland — has lived in the U.S. for 48 years before being detained and facing deportation, the congressman said. Her only criminal record was writing two bad checks totaling $80 several years ago, Magaziner said.

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(WASHINGTON) —  The Senate on Thursday failed to advance two competing health care proposals aimed at addressing a spike in costs that are expected for tens of millions of Americans who receive enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Both plans, one put forward by Democrats and the other championed by Republicans, failed to get the 60 votes needed.

The Republicans’ bill failed to advance by a vote of 51-48 with Republican Sen. Rand Paul as the only Republican to vote against it.

The Democrats’ bill also failed to advance by a vote of 51-48. Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan and Josh Hawley crossed the aisle to join all Democrats in supporting it.

Now, lawmakers will have only a matter of days remaining to address the expiration of the enhanced tax credits, and there’s little indication that any sort of breakthrough is on the horizon. 

Here’s what the plans entailed.

Democratic plan: 3-year extension of expiring enhanced tax credits

The Democratic plan proposed a three-year extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are otherwise set to expire on Jan. 1. The enhanced subsidies were originally put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During remarks on the floor Wednesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Democratic plan the “only realistic path left” to address the looming premium spike.

“We have 21 days until Jan. 1. After that, people’s health care bills will start going through the roof. Double, triple, even more,” Schumer said. “There is only one way to avoid all of this. The only realistic path left is what Democrats are proposing — a clean direct extension of this urgent tax credit.”

Even though Democrats are in the minority, they got a vote on their proposal as part of a deal struck by a small group of Senate moderates to reopen the federal government after a 43-day shutdown, which centered around Democrats’ efforts to address the expiring tax credits.

“What we need to do is prevent premiums from skyrocketing and only our bill does it is the last train out of the station,” Schumer said.

But Majority Leader John Thune made clear Wednesday that Republicans would not support the Democratic plan.

Thune called the Democratic proposal a “partisan messaging exercise” and said that Democrats’ claim that their plan would lower health care costs represented a “tour of fantasy land.”

Republicans have for months been saying that the premium subsidies require reform. Without changes, Republicans say, the enhanced subsidies create opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse and have driven up the overall cost of premiums.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the Senate Democrats’ proposal would add nearly $83 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade. CBO also estimates that enacting the Democrats’ legislation would increase the number of people with health insurance by 8.5 million people by 2029.

Pointing to the cost of extending the subsidies, Thune said Democrats ought to put forward a program that makes modifications to the program.

“That’s not what they did … No changes,” Thune said. “Just continue to run up the cost. Run up the cost in the individual marketplace like that — but have the American taxpayers pay for it and then go tell people that you’re trying to keep their premiums down,” Thune said. “This does nothing, nothing, to lower the cost of health insurance.”

Republican plan: Do away with the enhanced tax credits and create HSAs

Republicans offered an “alternative” plan on the Senate floor on Thursday.

The Republican proposal, championed by Senate Health Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, would do away with the enhanced tax credits and instead take the extra money from those tax credits and put it into health savings accounts for those who purchase bronze-level or “catastrophic” plans on the ACA exchanges. Republicans say this will help Americans pay for out-of-pocket costs.

Under the plan, individuals earning less than 700% of the federal poverty level would receive $1,000 in HSA funding for those between age 18 and 49 and $1,500 for those age 50-64. Republicans say these funds could be used to help cover the higher deductibles on lower cost plans.

Republicans said that their plan will reduce premiums through cost-sharing reductions and tout that the plan stops payments to insurance companies. Thune called it a “very different business model” than what Democrats proposed.

“The question is do you want the government deciding this, ordo you want to put this power and these resources in the hands of the American people?” Thune said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “American taxpayers. Patients. That’ what we’re about.”

Schumer had called it “dead on arrival.”

“I want to be very clear about what this Republican bill represents, junk insurance,” Schumer said. “Let me tell my Republican colleagues: it is dead on arrival. The proposal does nothing to bring down sky-high premiums; it doesn’t extend the ACA premiums by a single day. Instead, Republicans want to send people $80 dollars and pretend that is going to fix everything.” Schumer said.

Cassidy called Schumer’s categorization of his plan as a “junk plan” “so ironic.”

“These are Obamacare plans. These are the plans they put in place, except that when they did the plans, they’ve got $6,000 deductibles, or $7,500 deductibles. We addressed that deductible. We make these plans better,” Cassidy said. “We Republicans are trying to make it better. We want money in your pocket for your out-of-pocket [costs], and they want you to front the whole thing.”

Democrats also took umbrage with provisions in the GOP bill that prevent funds from being used for abortions. Schumer, on the Senate floor, called it a “poison pill.”

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, was asked if she saw any way that Democrats could support the bill.

“Not with the choice issues in it, where they have made it that women cannot get access to an abortion through their plan,” Murray said. “I don’t see any way that this helps the people that are being hurt right now by the tax credits going away.”

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(INDIANAPOLIS) — Indiana is the latest of several states redrawing congressional lines as its state Senate is set to convene Thursday to continue considering a bill that would give the state a new Republican-friendly congressional map, and may vote later in the day on whether to pass the map.

However, even though Republicans have a majority in the state’s Senate, with a 40-10 majority, enough GOP legislators might oppose the bill to sink it.

Indiana currently has seven Republican and two Democratic members of the U.S. House — and changes to the map could help Republicans get additional congressional seats in 2026 as they work to maintain their razor-thin majority in the lower chamber and advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The proposed map, which would make both of the Democratic-held U.S. House districts lean Republican, has been supported by the White House and Indiana’s governor. Vice President JD Vance has also made multiple visits to the state in recent months to encourage redistricting.

But multiple Republican state senators have said their constituents do not want redistricting or that they feel it is the wrong choice for Indiana, and there could be enough GOP senators voting no on the map along with Democrats for the bill to fail to pass.

The map bill passed through committee and procedural votes earlier this week.

Trump, on Friday, wrote on social media that the state Senate “must now pass this Map, AS IS, and get it to Governor Mike Braun’s desk, ASAP, to deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the ‘Hoosier State,’ and across the Country.”

In another post on Wednesday, he ratcheted up the pressure on state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray — who has indicated the Senate does not have enough votes to pass the map — and senators opposed to redistricting.

“Anybody that votes against Redistricting, and the SUCCESS of the Republican Party in D.C., will be, I am sure, met with a MAGA Primary in the Spring,” Trump said in his post.

“Rod Bray and his friends won’t be in Politics for long, and I will do everything within my power to make sure that they will not hurt the Republican Party, and our Country, again,” he added.

Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed to POLITICO that he had called state senators to encourage them to vote yes on the map.

Republican state senators in Indiana have also faced political pressure from conservative groups such as Turning Point Action, which said it will spend in primaries against state senators if they don’t support mid-decade redistricting. Another conservative group, Club for Growth, said it sponsored ads encouraging legislators to redistrict and invested in phone campaigns.

David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth and a former member of Congress from Indiana, told ABC News on Wednesday that he understood why some GOP senators in the Hoosier state opposed redistricting.

“It’s a conservative state, both philosophically, but also in approach. And so it’s like, ‘You got to show me why we’re doing this, why we should make a change,'” he said.

McIntosh expressed confidence that the bill would pass, particularly now that senators have been able to look at the map itself.

Asked if there’s any concern that putting too much political pressure on lawmakers might be detrimental to Republican mid-decade redistricting hopes in the long run, McIntosh indicated he didn’t think so.

“I think in the excitement of the moment, people may say very aggressive things, but it’s our approach to just persuade the Republicans why this is a good idea, and I’m very optimistic that that’s where they’re going to end up [voting for the map],” he said.

One Republican state senator who has previously said he is a firm no on the new map, state Sen. Michael Crider, told reporters on Wednesday that he isn’t changing his stance.

Separately, some senators opposed to or undecided on mid-decade redistricting say they have faced bomb or swatting threats to their homes. Law enforcement has not shared any motive for the threats, which have received bipartisan condemnation.

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(NEW YORK) — The Trump administration has expanded its review of colleges and universities across the country this year, threatening to withhold critical funding from some institutions if they do not comply with administration’s policies.

Many universities rely on federal funding for a sizable portion of their research funding. According to Neeli Bendapudi, the president of Penn State University, it is “important” that the federal government “continue that tradition of investing in our higher education system because it’s a huge competitive advantage.”

She, along with several university presidents, recently spoke with ABC News’ Linsey Davis in a wide-ranging discussion on the future of higher ed for ABC News’ “All Access with Linsey Davis.

Bendapudi said that if Penn State had received the administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence” memo, which offers preferential access to federal funding for higher education institutions, the university would have rejected it.

“It’s very important for universities to have the academic freedom to discuss,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine an institution of higher education where you’re not confronted by ideas and experiences that are not just echo chambers of your own. That is part and parcel of what it means to get a degree, right? So it’s very critical for us. Whoever you are, when you come in, we embrace you, you’re part of the culture of Penn State and we want you to succeed.”

In March, the Department of Education’s office for civil rights launched dozens of investigations into private and public higher education institutions, accusing the institutions of “allegedly awarding impermissible race-based scholarships and one university for allegedly administering a program that segregates students on the basis of race.”

Amid the investigation, a hold on federal funding put millions of dollars for critical research efforts at risk and threatened the progress of scientific innovation at various institutions.

Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was among those higher education institutions that were investigated by the Trump administration over the past year.

Cornell’s president, Michael Kotlikoff, announced on Nov. 7 that the university had reached a $60 million agreement with the government that would restore more than $250 million in funding for research grants. Cornell was fined $30 million and agreed to invest an additional $30 million for research to support America’s farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The federal investigation into the university has since been closed.

Kotlikoff reflected on the agreement during the conversation on “All Access,” saying Cornell had multiple “complaints” lodged against the university through the DOJ’s office of civil rights.

“When we started out this discussion with the federal government, we had two goals. One was to restore our relationship with the federal government and restore our funding. And the second was to do it in a way in which we did not compromise our principles,” Kotlikoff said. “We did not have the government dictate our policies or our procedures. And I think we achieved both of those goals, but as part of that, we did agree for the government to end these suits at Cornell, which would have cost us in excess of 30 million to fight, [and] it was costing many careers while our grants were suspended.”

According to the memo, which was reviewed by ABC News, the administration demanded that universities ban the use of race, sex, religion in hiring and admissions; freeze tuition rates for five years; cap the undergraduate enrollment of foreign students; require that applicants take the SAT or a similar admission test as well as change governance structures in the universities that punish conservative ideas.

A White House official confirmed to ABC News in October that letters were sent to nine universities to get feedback about the memo and try to secure agreements. Since then, the offer was extended to other higher education institutions – none of which have agreed to the compact so far.

The University of Arizona in Tucson was one of the nine institutions that received the memo on Oct. 1. In a statement, university president Suresh Garimella said he had “not agreed” to the so-called “compact.”

Garmella said that some proposed federal recommendations “deserve thoughtful consideration” and some are “already in place at the U of A,” but he added that “principles like academic freedom, merit-based research funding, and institutional independence are foundational and must be preserved.”

“As a result, the university has not agreed to the terms outlined in the draft proposal,” Garmella said, indicating that the university submitted a statement of principles to the U.S Department of Education.

Garmella reflected on the university’s decision to reject the compact during the conversation with other presidents on “All Access.”

“The University of Arizona, I believe, demonstrated a serious and a transparent and a constructive approach to this national policy discussion,” Garmella said, adding that the university’s “comprehensive” response to the draft proposal “reflected our commitment to academic excellence, to accountability, to meaningful engagement.”

ABC News’ Arthur Jones II and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate is now voting on two separate plans aimed at addressing a spike in health care costs that are expected for tens of millions of Americans who receive enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits unless Congress acts.

Both plans, one put forward by Democrats and the other championed by Republicans, are almost certain to fail.

After they do, lawmakers will have only a matter of days remaining to address the expiration of the enhanced tax credits, and there’s little indication that any sort of breakthrough is on the horizon. 

Democratic plan: 3-year extension of expiring enhanced tax credits

The Democratic plan that will receive a vote on Thursday proposes a three-year extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are otherwise set to expire on Jan. 1. The enhanced subsidies were originally put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During remarks on the floor Wednesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Democratic plan the “only realistic path left” to address the looming premium spike. 

“We have 21 days until Jan. 1. After that, people’s health care bills will start going through the roof. Double, triple, even more,” Schumer said. “There is only one way to avoid all of this. The only realistic path left is what Democrats are proposing — a clean direct extension of this urgent tax credit.”

Even though Democrats are in the minority, they are getting a vote on their proposal, as part of a deal struck by a small group of Senate moderates to re-open the federal government after a 43-day shutdown, which centered around Democrats’ efforts to address the expiring tax credits.

“What we need to do is prevent premiums from skyrocketing and only our bill does it is the last train out of the station,” Schumer said. 

But any health care proposal in the Senate will require 60 votes to pass, which means members of both parties would need to lend votes to approve a plan. 

Majority Leader John Thune made clear Wednesday that Republicans will not support the Democratic plan. 

Thune called the Democratic proposal a “partisan messaging exercise” and said that Democrats’ claim that their plan would lower health care costs represented a “tour of fantasy land.”

Republicans have for months been saying that the premium subsidies require reform. Without changes, Republicans say, the enhanced subsidies create opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse and have driven up the overall cost of premiums.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate Democrats’ proposal would add nearly $83 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade. CBO also estimates that enacting the Democrats’ legislation would increase the number of people with health insurance by 8.5 million people by 2029.

Pointing to the cost of extending the subsidies, Thune said, Democrats ought to put forward a program that makes modifications to the program. 

“That’s not what they did … No changes,” Thune said. “Just continue to run up the cost. Run up the cost in the individual marketplace like that — but have the American taxpayers pay for it and then go tell people that you’re trying to keep their premiums down,” Thune said. “This does nothing, nothing, to lower the cost of health insurance.” 

Republican plan: Do away with the enhanced tax credits and create HSAs

Republicans will offer an “alternative” plan on the Senate floor on Thursday.

The Republican proposal, championed by Senate Health Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, would do away with the enhanced tax credits and instead take the extra money from those tax credits and put it into health savings accounts for those who purchase bronze-level or “catastrophic” plans on the ACA exchanges. Republicans say this will help Americans pay for out-of-pocket costs.

Under the plan, individuals earning less than 700% of the federal poverty level would receive $1,000 in HSA funding for those between age 18 and 49 and $1,500 for those age 50-64. Republicans say these funds could be used to help cover the higher deductibles on lower cost plans. 

Republicans say that their plan will reduce premiums through cost-sharing reductions and tout that the plan stops payments to insurance companies. Thune called it a “very different business model” than what Democrats are proposing. 

“The question is do you want the government deciding this, ordo you want to put this power and these resources in the hands of the American people?” Thune said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “American taxpayers. Patients. That’ what we’re about.“

This bill is also unlikely to pass the Senate on Thursday. Schumer called it “dead on arrival”.

“I want to be very clear about what this Republican bill represents, junk insurance,” Schumer said. “Let me tell my Republican colleagues: it is dead on arrival. The proposal does nothing to bring down sky-high premiums; it doesn’t extend the ACA premiums by a single day. Instead, Republicans want to send people $80 dollars and pretend that is going to fix everything.” Schumer said. 

Cassidy this morning called Schumer’s categorization of his plan as a “junk plan” “so ironic.”

“These are Obamacare plans. These are the plans they put in place, except that when they did the plans, they’ve got $6,000 deductibles, or $7,500 deductibles. We addressed that deductible. We make these plans better,” Cassidy said. “We Republicans are trying to make it better. We want money in your pocket for your out-of-pocket [costs], and they want you to front the whole thing.”

Democrats also take umbrage with provisions in the GOP bill that prevent funds from being used for abortions. Schumer, on the Senate floor, called it a “poison pill.”

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, was asked if she saw any way that Democrats could support the bill today.

“Not with the choice issues in it, where they have made it that women cannot get access to an abortion through their plan,” Murray said. “I don’t see any way that this helps the people that are being hurt right now by the tax credits going away.”

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