Nevada senator: Failed health care vote 'shameful'

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D. Nev., during the third annual water summit hosted by Congresswoman Susie Lee, D-Nev., at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. Photo by: Steve Marcus

Nevada Democrats are turning up the heat on their Republican colleagues after the U.S. Senate failed to pass an extension of health care tax credits today with health insurance premium spikes on the horizon.

The vote was promised as part of the deal between Republicans and some Senate Democrats, including U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., to end the 43-day government shutdown earlier this year.

The deal was harshly criticized by Democrats in the House of Representatives who believed the vote on the enhanced premium tax credits was destined to fail and that the shutdown was the party’s only point of leverage.

A handful of Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats in voting to extend the Affordable Care Act credits Thursday, but it wasn’t enough to get across the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. The separate proposals produced the same 51-48 vote.

Premium payments for those on the ACA marketplace are set to more than double without the tax credit’s extension, according to KFF, a nonprofit health care research organization. 

Cortez Masto called the vote “shameful,” writing on social media that the GOP had chosen to let Nevadans’ health care premiums “soar” next month.

“I will continue working in the Senate to lower health care costs for Nevadans in every way that I can,” the Senator wrote. “But we cannot forget the reason we are here: Senate Republicans have always cared more about tax breaks for the wealthy than relief for everyday Americans.”

But Republicans, who have criticized the tax credits as a handout to insurance companies, did have a proposal of their own that also failed Thursday morning. 

Instead of extending the pandemic-era subsidies, the GOP’s plan would have directed money through a Health Savings Account to people on certain ACA exchange plans earning less than 700% of the poverty line. Like the ACA extension, the plan fell nine votes short of passing.

Before Thursday’s vote, Rosen challenged her Republican colleagues voting against the enhanced premium tax credit extension to have their family go without healthcare for a year. Rosen told them to “walk a mile in the shoes of the families” losing health care because of the vote.

“Every Senate Republican who just voted to raise your health care costs should be ashamed of themselves,” Rosen wrote on social media after the vote. “Thousands of Nevadans won’t be able to afford health insurance next year because (President Donald) Trump and Washington Republicans have refused to do anything” regarding the tax credits.

After the extension failed, the Nevada State Democratic Party attempted to tie the vote, as well as the ensuing increased health care costs, to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, R-Nev., and his relationship with Trump and GOP Republicans.

The party highlighted his veto of Assembly Bill 259, which would have capped the cost of certain medications to their “maximum fair price” as negotiated by President Joe Biden’s administration. However, Lombardo wrote in his veto that the bill would have driven up overall costs.

“Lombardo will always choose Trump’s price-hiking agenda over working families and Nevadans deserve better than a Trump rubber stamp,” Nevada Dems spokesperson Kate Sosland wrote in a statement.