House GOP summons health insurers to Capitol Hill hearings as Obamacare fight heats up

FIRST ON FOX: As Americans across the country grapple with rising costs of care, health insurance companies are being summoned to Capitol Hill for a pair of blockbuster hearings, Fox News Digital reports.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees health policy, and the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy, are holding hearings on the rising costs of health care in the United States.

It is not yet clear which companies will be represented or whether they will allow executives to participate voluntarily.

But the announcement appears to be a move by the GOP to counter-programme a House vote expected this week on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of 2025.

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Obamacare subsidies were expanded in 2020 and 2021 to make them available to more people during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Democratic majority in Congress at the time was only able to extend those benefits for a limited time.

Whether these subsidies would be extended was the subject of fierce debate on Capitol Hill in the final months of 2025.

A majority of Republicans oppose expanding subsidies, dismissing them as a pandemic-era relic that is part of a broken federal health care system.

Republicans also argued that subsidies reduce costs for only 7 percent of Americans and do nothing to combat the root causes of high health care costs.

WATCH: DOCTOR-LABIST ACCUSES OBAMACARE OF RAISING HEALTHCARE COSTS

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., speaks during a House Republican press conference at the Capitol on February 8, 2022 in Washington. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

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

A small group of moderate Republicans joined Democrats in late December to hold a successful vote on a three-year extension that would take place on Thursday.

But if the bill passes, it will likely be dead by the time it reaches the Senate.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., leaves the House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on February 14, 2024 in Washington. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

House Republicans passed a health care bill just before leaving Washington for a two-week holiday recess in December.

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The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act includes provisions to regulate association health plans that allow small businesses and self-employed individuals to band together to purchase. health insurance plansgiving them access to greater bargaining power.

Republicans also plan to provide matching funding starting in 2027 for cost-sharing reductions designed to lower out-of-pocket medical costs in the individual health market. House GOP leadership aides said it would reduce the cost of premiums by 12%.