On Dec. 1, with time running out before tens of millions of Americans faced dramatic spikes in their health care coverage, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries played the only card he had left: The New York Democrat launched a discharge petition on a bill to keep existing Affordable Care Act subsidies in place for three years.....

Realistically, it seemed unlikely that any GOP members would sign on to the Democratic discharge petition — right up until some surprising developments on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning. NBC News reported:

Rebelling against their leaders, four House Republicans on Wednesday signed onto a ‘discharge petition,’ giving Democrats the 218 signatures needed to force a vote on a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire for millions of Americans on Dec. 31.

If the enhanced premium tax credits expire, as is expected, insurance costs are projected to double, on average, for about 22 million Americans who get their coverage through Obamacare.

.....This, in turn, started the clock on a floor vote that House GOP leaders are powerless to stop. That said, the legislative procedures involved with a discharge petition can take a while, and the vote will probably be delayed until January — after key deadlines for health care consumers have come and gone.

As for House Speaker Mike Johnson, that four of his members signed on to the Democratic discharge petition is the latest in a series of embarrassments for the Louisiana Republican, following two other recent instances in which a majority of House members went around him to advance legislation he tried to keep off the floor.

“I have not lost control of the House,” Johnson told reporters on the Hill on Wednesday.

The funny thing about that is, House speakers in positions of strength don’t usually have to say, “I have not lost control of the House.” It’s assumed. No one ever heard Rep. Nancy Pelosi utter such a line because the idea that her leadership had deteriorated to such a degree was too preposterous to imagine.