House GOP summons health insurers to Capitol Hill as Obamacare battle escalates

FIRST ON FOX: Health insurance companies are being summoned to Capitol Hill for a pair of blockbuster hearings as Americans across the country deal with rising costs for their care, Fox News Digital is first to learn.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee, which oversees health policy, and the Ways & Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy, are both holding hearings on the rising cost of healthcare in the U.S.

It’s not immediately clear which companies will be represented or if they will allow executives to appear voluntarily.

But the announcement appears to be the House GOP’s move to counter-program an expected vote this week on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies that expired at the end of 2025.

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Obamacare subsidies were expanded in 2020 and 2021 to be available to more people during the COVID-19 pandemic, but then-Democratic majorities in Congress were only able to extend those for a finite period of time.

Whether to extend those subsidies was the subject of fierce debate on Capitol Hill in the waning months of 2025.

The vast majority of Republicans are opposed to extending the subsidies, dismissing them as a pandemic-era relic that’s part of a broken federal healthcare system.

Republicans have also argued that the subsidies only eased costs for 7% of Americans and did nothing to tackle the root causes of high healthcare costs.

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But the moderate GOP lawmakers and Democrats who support extending the program have pointed out that an extension would give Congress more time to work on a more permanent solution to healthcare while avoiding the cost cliff seen at the end of last year.

A small group of moderate Republicans joined Democrats in late December to successfully force a vote on a three-year extension, which is taking place on Thursday.

The legislation is likely dead on arrival in the Senate if it passes, however.

House Republicans passed a healthcare bill just before leaving Washington for their two-week holiday break in December.

The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act includes provisions to codify association health plans, which allow small businesses and people who are self-employed to band together to purchase healthcare coverage plans, giving them access to greater bargaining power.

Republicans also plan to appropriate funding for cost-sharing reductions beginning in 2027, which are designed to lower out-of-pocket medical costs in the individual healthcare market. House GOP leadership aides said it would bring down the cost of premiums by 12%.