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Sen. Bill Cassidy, the chairman of the Senate health committee, says "we're absolutely in communication with the White House" about a plan to bring down the for Americans. 

He told "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" in an interview airing Sunday he's aiming to have a proposal ready for a vote that is set to take place in mid-December.

for about 22 million Americans who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace were at the center of the government shutdown that ended Wednesday. A Biden-era expansion of those subsidies is expiring at the end of the year, so unless they're extended, many consumers will likely face far higher insurance premiums. 

Democrats pushed Republicans to extend the subsidies as a condition for reopening the government, but they eventually settled for the promise of a vote next month on extending the enhanced .

Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said of any plan to extend the subsidies, "Let's recognize what you're doing just gives money to insurance companies."  

Instead, he's asking Republican and Democratic colleagues to collaborate on lowering health insurance premiums and directly giving Americans money to help them offset high deductibles that are often a feature of the lower-cost policies under the ACA.

"We can do it better with lower premiums and with money and accounts to pay deductibles," Cassidy told Brennan. He said he's telling Democrats, "Let's not be Democrats and Republicans — let's be Americans, representing all of Americans."

President Trump offered a last weekend, writing on Truth Social the money that's spent on health insurance subsidies should be "SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE."

Brennan pressed Cassidy on extending the expanded tax credits, which were created in 2021 and are set to expire at the end of the year. 

Noting the approximately 293,000 Louisianans currently enrolled in Obamacare, Brennan asked, "Are you telling those hundreds of thousands of Louisianans that that tax credit is going away no matter what, that they should make plans no for higher prices?"

Cassidy countered that the problem with the plans was that many of them have high deductibles, with some reaching $6,000 in out-of-pocket costs. The lower-premium "bronze" plans on the ACA's marketplaces often have high deductibles. 

"Margaret, I'm a doctor," Cassidy said. "I would talk to people when they'd come to see me, and they would tell me, 'I can't afford that. My deductible is too high.' That's reality, and that reality is being lost in this discussion."