(sigh) Stick a fork in it? ACA subsidy negotiations appear to be dead

Via the Wall St. Journal:

Top Senate negotiators said an effort to renew expired healthcare subsidies had effectively collapsed, likely ending the hopes of 20 million Americans that the tax-credit expansion could be revived and lower their monthly insurance premiums.

Talks had centered on a proposal from Sens. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) to extend a version of the enlarged Affordable Care Act subsidies for at least two years, while cutting off higher-income people from participating and eventually giving enrollees the option of putting money into health savings accounts. It also would eliminate zero-dollar premium plans. But lawmakers from both parties now say the chances of a deal have all but evaporated.

“It’s effectively over,” Moreno said Wednesday. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.)—the architect of an adjacent plan—agreed. While Collins declined to be as definitive, she did say that it was “certainly difficult.”

...Some Democrats who had been working to find a middle ground agreed that talks had collapsed over how to handle abortion coverage. 

Well, I can't say that this is surprising. As I noted last week, Sen. Moreno's "final offer" bill was a complete joke (with some portions of the legislative text being literally indecipherable).

The weird thing to me is that--assuming the final version of the bill which was being discussed prior to the talks collapsing was the same as Moreno's "final offer" bill--the Hyde Amendment (abortion) language was actually among the least offensive provisions of it.

That isn't to say I found the Hyde language acceptable, just that there were other portions of the "final offer" bill which were far more ludicrous.

In any event, there could be some sort of surprise after all, I suppose, but it sounds like the subsidy upgrade is pretty much dead, at least unless/until Democrats retake control of both the House and Senate (and of course even then they'd still have to deal with the filibuster and a potential veto by Trump...)