WASHINGTON — Hopes are fading for a year-end bipartisan deal to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits after a potential compromise proposal floated by President Donald Trump’s White House has fizzled with congressional Republicans.

GOP leaders in the House and Senate have poured cold water on the putative plan put forward by the White House before Thanksgiving and Democrats say no one is negotiating with them as the clock ticks down to massive health insurance premium increases that will hit more than 20 million Americans on January 1 if no deal is reached.

With his Republican allies badly divided, Trump himself has failed to go to bat for his own White House’s tentative proposal, admitting he would prefer to allow the tax credits to expire rather than fund an extension that would further entrench the program colloquially known as Obamacare, the signature policy of former President Barack Obama.

“Republicans refuse to do a thing to prevent healthcare costs from dramatically increasing,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, the House minority leader, said. “They have done nothing over the last several months to address the healthcare crisis that they have created, and they continue to refuse to take yes for an answer.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, is still hopeful Republicans will come to the table before next week’s deadline for the Senate to vote on a Democratic proposal extending the tax credits and preventing the massive cost increases.

Democrats forced GOP leaders to permit the vote as part of the deal to end the government shutdown but there is no prospect of the proposal winning anything close to the 60 votes needed to pass in the Senate.

“There are some significant sticking points,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, conceded.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, says he has no plans to even bring the measure up for a vote in the House. He reportedly told Trump directly before Thanksgiving that there isn’t support among Republicans for extending the Obamacare credits.

Trump himself has shown little appetite to expend the political capital that would be needed to muscle an extension through Congress even though Republicans control both chambers.

“I’d rather not extend them at all,” Trump said shortly before Thanksgiving, though he acknowledged that “some kind of extension might be necessary to get something done.”

He hasn’t said anything about the topic since returning from a weekend at his oceanfront resort club in Palm Beach, Fla., preferring to discuss the escalating confrontation with Venezuela and peace talks with Russia aimed at ending its invasion of Ukraine.

Republicans are caught in a familiar bind on skyrocketing health costs. There is scant support in their caucus to bolster Obamacare, which they worked for more than a decade to repeal.

But they also are unable to unite around a potential solution, leaving them paralyzed in the face of politically potent Democratic demands to do something to help ordinary Americans facing rising bills.

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