A new KFF survey shows many Americans who had Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance last year are struggling with high health costs. The findings come three months after the expiration of enhanced tax credits that had offset most enrollees' monthly premiums. Thursday's poll of more than 1,000 of last year's ACA enrollees finds that more than half of those who re-enrolled are looking for ways to cut their spending. This includes cutting back on food and other household basics to afford health costs. One enrollee, 48-year-old Priscilla Brown in Florida, says she sometimes doesn't take her medicine for her Type 2 diabetes so that it will last longer. The poll also finds that 1 in 10 of last year's ACA enrollees dropped health insurance entirely.

The House has passed a roughly $1.2 trillion spending package to end a partial government shutdown. The bill next goes to President Donald Trump for his signature. The vote wraps up congressional work on 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills, funding the vast majority of the government until Sept. 30. But there's one more funding fight to come. The last bill still to be worked out covers the Department of Homeland Security, where Democrats are demanding more restrictions on enforcement operations. Speaker Mike Johnson says he expects the two sides will be able to reach an agreement on Homeland Security funding by the deadline.

The House is pushing toward a vote on renewing subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans. It's a remarkable rebuke of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who tried to stop it. But renegade Republican lawmakers joined with Democrats on a so-called "discharge petition" to force action. The health care tax breaks have lowered health insurance costs for roughly 22 million people, but expired last month. The Congressional Budget Office said the proposed three-year extension would increase the nation's deficit by about $80.6 billion over the decade, and increase the number of people with health insurance by millions. Members of the Senate are working on an alternative bill.

Four centrist Republicans have broken with their party's leadership over health care. They've signed onto a Democratic-led petition that will force a House vote on extending for three years an enhanced pandemic-era subsidy that lowers health insurance costs for millions of Americans. The stunning move Wednesday comes after House Republican leaders pushed ahead with a health bill that doesn't address the soaring monthly premiums coming for those with insurance through the Affordable Care Act. A House vote on the subsidies could come as soon as January. Even if it passed, it would face an arduous climb in the Republican-led Senate.

President Donald Trump has signed a government funding bill that ends a record 43-day shutdown. The disruption caused financial stress for federal workers who went without paychecks, stranded scores of travelers at airports and generated long lines at some food banks. The signing ceremony came just hours after the House passed the measure on a mostly party-line vote of 222-209. Democrats wanted to extend an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces and refused to go along with a spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time, and they prevailed.