According to a report from Philip Klein in the conservative Washington Examiner, House Republicans are "open to a variety of policy responses to keep financial assistance flowing to those already enrolled in President Obama's healthcare law" in the event that the Supreme Court guts subsidies in its King v. Burwell decision.
But conversations with Republican lawmakers and aides in both the House and Senate indicate there is one red line that the GOP won't be willing to cross. Simply put: A GOP Congress will never permanently extend the subsidies that were just declared illegal so that new enrollees could claim Obamacare benefits.
There are several competing plans, Klein reports, which offer some sort of temporary extension, but won't make it permanent and will not allow new enrollees to receive the subsidies, possibly in
any state, whether it's using the federal exchange or a state-based exchange. That's what's in Sen. Ron Johnson's
"fix" and it's a poison pill if Republicans are attempting what Klein says they are—giving up some hardcore Republicans in order to get some Democrats onboard. That said, Klein adds, Republicans still have a lot to work out "relating to the mechanism that would be used to provide temporary financial assistance, how such assistance would be paid for and what type of concessions Republicans might demand from Democrats." All of those are pretty big things yet to figure out.
Greg Sargent comments on this story, suggesting that there might be "the basis for a real compromise" here if Republicans are "willing to ask for concessions from Democrats (it’s not clear what) that are not designed to destroy Obamacare in order to save it." If that plan contains no subsidies for new enrollees—especially if it includes the Johnson language that ends them in every state, that basically counts as destroying Obamacare. It would be a long, slow death as fewer and fewer people enrolled, but it would die.