WSJ What’s News - What’s Next in the Fight Over Healthcare Subsidies

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

A.M. Edition for Dec. 22. Congress breaks for the holidays without renewing enhanced ACA subsidies. The WSJ’s Sabrina Sidiqui explains what could break the impasse, as millions face higher healthcare premiums and lingering uncertainty. Plus, after seizing a second tanker over the weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard hunts another ship involved in moving Venezuelan oil. And a former Tesla staffer who clashed with Elon Musk shakes up the race to run General Motors. Daniel Bach hosts. Listen to the full interview with Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack on WSJ’s Take On the Week.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The U.S. escalates pressure on Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro with two Coast Guard interventions against oil tankers over the weekend. Plus, Charlie Kirk's empire backs J.D. Vans for 2028. And lawmakers leave the fight over extending health care subsidies until the new year, putting many Americans in limbo. As many as 20 million Americans could be in for a surprise with respect to the cost of their health care coverage in the next year. It's Monday, December 22nd.

I'm Daniel Bach for the Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. U.S. officials say the Coast Guard is on the trail of another tanker ship involved in transporting oil from Venezuela, which comes after the U.S. seized a second ship over the weekend as part of its campaign to block vessels moving the country's crude. The ship under pursuit has been identified by two officials as the Bella One, which was sanctioned last year by the U.S.

Its registered owner didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. On Saturday, the Coast Guard boarded a ship that had been docked in Venezuela. The Centuries was flying a Panamanian flag, and according to shipping data provider Kepler, it wasn't on a U.S., EU, UK, or United Nations sanctions list. In a social media post, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the ship, was, quote, a falsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet. Its registered owner also didn't immediately respond to calls seeking comment. Back in the U.S., a top Justice Department official said the agency has temporarily removed some of the Jeffrey Epstein files that were released on Friday to address complaints from victims about the agency's failure to redact their images or details.

More than a dozen photos were removed on Saturday from the latest trove, which was criticized by, lawmakers for not including all of the DOJ's materials and because some of the documents were heavily redacted. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC's Meet the Press that the agency was not redacting the names of famous people associated with the late sex offender. Blanche, a former personal lawyer to President Trump, said the agency would re-release the images it pulled, along with additional material in coming weeks to comply with a mandate from Congress. You lead an incredible movement at Turning Point, and I will fight alongside you and President Trump and every patriot in this room to defend the country that we so dearly love.

Vice President J.D. Vance speaking in Phoenix yesterday, closing out the first major event held by Turning Point USA since the death of founder Charlie Kirk. Vance's remarks came just days after Charlie's widow, Erica Kirk, endorsed his potential 2028 presidential run. Vance hasn't officially declared his intent to run for president, but behind the scenes, Turning Point is already setting up infrastructure to boost a potential bid. That includes planning to put representatives in every county in Iowa, ahead of the presidential primary, to help secure the important early state. CBS News is defending a decision to pull a planned 60-minute segment over the weekend, looking at the El Salvador maximum security president, where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants.

In an email to colleagues seen by the journal, CBS correspondent Sharon Alfonzi said that the decision was, in her view, a political one rather than an editorial call. A spokesman for CBS said in a statement that the story needed additional reporting and that it would run in a future broadcast. Well, after three straight interest rate cuts, Fed officials are divided over the past. forward. So to help shed light on their thinking and how they're interpreting recent data, our colleagues on WSJ's take on the week sat down for an interview with Beth Hammock. She's a former top banker at Goldman Sachs and now president of the Cleveland Fed. And as of next year,

we'll also get a vote on the Fed's rate setting committee. Hamick is a Fed hawk by reputation and said she doesn't see any need to change interest rates for several months, advocating instead for a pause to see how this year's cuts play out in the economy. There'll be a lot of new variables coming to play. We have the recent fiscal bill that was passed over the summer. There'll be some positive boost, I think, happening in the economy coming from that. And it'll be important to see how the tariff story plays out. We'll be nearly a year on by the time we get to March.

And so I think by springtime, if it really is a one-time price-level shift, we should start seeing inflation coming back down again around that time towards the end of the first quarter. So I think it'll be pretty soon that we'll be able to see more how the economy is unfolding. And it'll give us good insights as to whether we need to lean in more to that labor side because that softening is continuing or whether inflation is really being persistent above our target. And that's where we need to focus more. Hamick also shared her take on the so-called neutral rate, AI, and the jobs market. And if you want to take a listen, you can check out the latest episode of WSJ's take on the week. We've left a link in our show notes. And in other news, investors will

be paying attention to, robotics guru Sterling Anderson, has joined the race to run General Motors. The 42-year-old joined GM back in June as its product chief, overseeing development of both gas-powered and electric vehicles. The former Tesla staffer, known for clashing with Elon Musk, is seen by some leaders at GM as a dark horse candidate to succeed CEO Mary Bara. A spokeswoman said there had been no discussion to borrow leaving and classified any talk of future roles for Anderson as speculation. Coming up, lawmakers head home for the holidays without a fix for expiring health care subsidies. We'll go over what that means for millions of Americans' coverage

and how it could get resolved. That story after the break. When you're flying Emirates business class, relaxing in an exclusive airport lounge, You'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates. Fly better. Members of Congress are leaving town for the holidays with some unfinished business, setting up a fight over the future of Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Our Sabrina Siddiqui is still in the nation's capital and here to talk about the political football awaiting them in the new year. Sabrina, first of all, remind us of where things stand for those receiving. coverage through the ACA exchanges? Well, one of the key deadlines already passed on December 15th, which was for people to sign up for coverage starting on January 1st through the federal marketplace and most of the state exchanges. Having said that, enrollment is still possible through the federal marketplace until January 15th. And coverage, depending on how long you wait to sign up, may not kick in until the beginning of February. So there may still be this risk of a lapse in coverage. What we heard in our reporting is that according to insurance agents, most people did

sign up for plans in 2026, but a lot of them did not know what those plans are actually going to cost because we still don't know what the fate of these enhanced subsidies will be. And of the people you and our colleague, Lindsay, what is the math they're sort of seeing now? What are they facing in the new year? I spoke with one woman in Mississippi who had been uninsured before she was able to take advantage of these enhanced subsidies. And she works at a small construction company. So there are a lot of people who work in places where there is no employer-sponsored health care. And what she said is that she actually did terminate her health care coverage because what she was told is that her monthly premium, if the enhanced subsidies expire,

will jump from $126 a month to about $600 a month. And she simply can't afford that. And this is someone who told me that she's had to get treatment for a pre-cancerous spot on her nose. she had to have benign tumors removed in the last few years. And so there's a lot of concerns for her going without health insurance and potentially having to access treatment that she's no longer going to be able to pay for. What we also have seen based on estimates from the healthcare nonprofit KFF is that for people who receive the enhanced subsidies, the monthly premiums on average are, expected to more than double. So there is a lot for lawmakers to take care of when they return

from the holidays in January. What can we expect from the political side when that debate begins again? Well, one of the things that's been striking about this still being front and center is that Congress has actually been weighing this issue for months. So the scenarios we're now looking at are does the small but growing number of moderate Republicans who face vulnerable elections in the coming midterms join with Democrats and manage to pass some kind of bipartisan compromise in part because of voter frustration over rising health care costs? Or does this issue just become a political issue in the midterms? It's important to point out that the growing number of Republicans who are either moderates or facing tough elections in the midterms.

terms who support extending these subsidies have really voiced a lot of concern about how this issue may play out in the upcoming midterms because this election has already been framed around affordability. And so their argument is that if people's health care costs go up, Republicans are more likely to bear the blame. And that's actually borne out in polling, which shows that most Americans support extending the subsidies and one recent poll by that same health care nonprofit KFF found that enrollees, ACA enrollees, would be more likely to blame Republicans and President Trump compared to Democrats if the subsidies were to expire. Right. So a complex political calculus facing Republicans there, and one that isn't made any easier

by the fact that Trump hasn't given the party a clear line on this. The big unknown here is President Trump, because he has not publicly waded into this debate in a meaningful way. He has floated at times extending the subsidies, but he just has not put his full support behind any proposal. And so one other thing that could change the status quote is if Congress comes back in January and President Trump says, I want these subsidies to be extended, at least in the short term, and then it's unlikely that Republican leadership in Congress would not allow for that to happen. That's national politics reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui for us in Washington. Sabrina, thank you for this. Thank you so much.

And finally, the numbers are in for the third installment of Disney's Avatar. According to the studio, Avatar, Fire, and Ash open to an estimated $345 million worldwide, which is the second biggest launch this year. That is well below 2022's Avatar, The Way of the Water, which opened to about $435 million. Ben Fritz covers the entertainment industry for the journal and says that box office-wise, Hollywood is still some ways away from its pre-pandemic heyday. It's been a very mixed here at the box office so far in 2025. The total numbers are basically flat with 2024, up just a bit, but still well below where we were in 2019 before the

pandemic. We've had a few surprising smash hits like weapons and the latest conjuring and F1, Sinners, Minecraft, Lilo and Stitch, Zootopia 2, as well as plenty of disappointments like the live-action version of Snow White, Marvel's Captain America Brave New World, and Thunderbolts. So, as I said, very mixed year. For Avatar, the bar for success is especially high due to the size of its production costs, though Disney executives hope Fire and Ash will benefit from the same box office staying power that earlier installments of the franchise enjoyed. Now, that's it for today's show, but before we go,

Heads up, we put out the latest installment of our USA 250 series on What's News Sunday, this time looking at the generations-long push and pull over worker safety in America. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Christina Rocca. And I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

Thank you.