Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Lawler were among the House Republicans voting to advance a bill on expired Obamacare subsidies despite Speaker Mike Johnson's objections to such a move. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
But a significant number of GOP moderates were frustrated that their party leaders in the House and Senate had done little to avert a price hike for millions of Americans' insurance premiums.
Four of them signed onto a discharge petition filed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., last month aimed at forcing a vote on extending the subsidies for three years over House GOP leaders' objections.
A discharge petition is a mechanism for getting legislation considered on the House floor even if the majority's leadership is opposed to it.
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Those four lawmakers — Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., and Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa. — were among the nine to vote for advancing Jeffries' petition on Wednesday.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks during a press conference on healthcare with other House Democrats, on the East steps of the U.S. Capitol on October 15, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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The vast majority of Republicans believe that the subsidies are a COVID-era relic of a long-broken federal healthcare system. Conservatives argued that the relatively small percentage of Americans who rely on Obamacare meant that an extension would do little to ease rising health costs that people across the country are experiencing.
But a core group of moderates has been arguing that a failure to extend a reformed version of them would force millions of Americans to grapple with skyrocketing healthcare costs this year.
House Republicans passed a healthcare bill in mid-December aimed at lowering those costs for a broader swath of Americans, but that legislation has not been taken up in the Senate.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/9-house-republicans-defy-mike-johnson-join-dems-advance-obamacare-extension-vote