December 12, 2025 11:55 AM UTC

Senate Health Premium Subsidy Extension Vote Fails

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• by: Colorado Pols

As John Ingold reports for the Colorado Sun, yesterday in the U.S. Senate, the vote which had been promised to a faction of Senate Democrats when they caved in to Republican demands to reopen the federal government abandoning their demand for an extension to expiring health insurance premium subsidies took place, and as was fully expected, failed to pass either an extension of the credits or a Republican alternative to inject much less money into health savings accounts and let consumers sort out their options from there:

The state estimates that, on average, people shopping on their own for insurance will see a 101% increase in what they pay just to buy insurance. But, because of the way the subsidies are calculated combined with high underlying costs for insurance, people in rural Colorado will see even bigger average increases.

Both of Colorado’s U.S. senators criticized Republicans for not supporting a subsidy extension.

“What most Coloradans want, they’re trying to find a way to lower the costs, and yet this is just the opposite,” Hickenlooper said in an interview Wednesday, looking ahead to the vote. “This is going to dramatically increase the cost for a large percentage of Coloradans.”

With the deal for a vote that ended the shutdown having officially ended in failure, Sen. John Hickenlooper defended the shutdown fight that Democrats seemed to be winning after voters punished Republicans in the November off-year elections:

Democrats in the Senate had refused to support a measure to keep the government funded unless it contained a provision to extend the enhanced insurance subsidies. The shutdown ended when a handful of Democrats, not including Bennet or Hickenlooper, [Pols emphasis] agreed to a deal to reopen the government in conjunction with a promise for a vote on subsidy extension — the vote that failed Thursday.

Despite that meek ending, Hickenlooper said the shutdown fight was worth it, even though he also said, “I hate shutdowns, and I am distressed that it was necessary.”

Not only was the shutdown necessary, it’s clear now that the faction of Democrats who caved made a huge strategic mistake. The agreement to allow a Senate vote was never in good faith, and Democrats gave up even with the public overwhelmingly on their side. Now the fight over extending the subsidies, or whatever substitute crumbs Republicans see fit to throw at millions of Americans facing financial hardship or ruin, returns to the House where Speaker Mike Johnson is maneuvering MAGA loyalists away from a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation to do so. Colorado’s freshman GOP Rep. Jeff Hurd supports that bill, but not enough to endanger “regular order”–cold comfort to thousands in his district. Other Republicans like Rep. Gabe Evans are not even faking sympathy.

The only real hope now, sadly, is that the outcry from constituents over the massive premium hikes they’re facing will force Republicans with a conscience back to the bargaining table to save their own political skins in the upcoming midterm elections. That could well include Rep. Hurd, and in the interest of his own political survival it should include America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent™ Gabe Evans. Evans’ aloofness while representing a working-class district with thousands of his constituents in jeopardy from his actions is, as we’ve said many times, politically inexplicable.

In a matter of days now, the pain will no longer be hypothetical.