Trump abruptly pulls plan to announce Obamacare extension after ‘significant congressional backlash’: report

Just minutes before President Donald Trump was set to unveil a plan to avert a massive hike for Obamacare health plans on Monday afternoon, the event was suddenly pulled — reportedly because of widespread Republican unease on the Hill.

On CNN, anchor Jessica Dean was forced to interrupt herself while interviewing a health expert to announce some breaking news as it came into her ear – that the event had been abruptly postponed.

Federal subsidies passed under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act are set to expire at the end of the calendar year, and many Americans are already receiving notice that the monthly cost of their health care plans could jump by hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Democrats initially tried to avert those premium hikes by tying their extension to the party’s support for a continuing resolution to avert, and later end, a government shutdown. But despite that shutdown dragging out into the longest in U.S. history, Republicans refused to negotiate until the government reopened; Democrats eventually voted to reopen the government without the extension.

Earlier in November, the Senate voted down a bill sponsored by Democrats to extend the subsidies by one year.

Now the White House and congressional Republicans are scrambling to agree on a single strategy, while Trump has fed fuel to the fire with his own suggestions of scrapping the subsidies entirely and giving checks directly to Americans. That idea did not have any meaningful support in Congress.