This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science Delivers.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.

Four Republicans have broken with their leadership and signed on to a Democratic-led petition,

forcing a House vote to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act insurance plans.

The move comes as monthly premiums for the plans are set to soar after the subsidies expire at the end of the month.

As NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin explains, many people with the Obamacare plans are in Republican-led

states, but Republicans largely don't want to shore up the system.

Partly Republicans don't like the Affordable Care Act, and they don't want to vote to shore it up.

They say the enhanced subsidies are just papering over the high cost of health

insurance. Also, they say that it's a really small portion of the population that relies on these

plans, only about 7% of Americans. Most people get their insurance through their jobs or through

Medicaid or Medicare. So Republicans seem to be making the calculation that even if some of their voters are

on the hook for these higher premiums, it might not be enough to hurt the party politically.

NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reporting, wealthy private astronaut Jared Isaacman has been

confirmed by the Senate to be the new head of NASA. NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boyfield voice reports

that he's taking charge of the agency

at a critical time. Jared Isaacman is a businessman who flew to space twice in SpaceX capsules. On one of

those flights, he and a crewmate opened up a hatch and performed the first private spacewalk. President

Trump nominated him to lead NASA, but then abruptly withdrew that nomination in the spring, only to renominate him in November.

Isaacman is becoming administrator as NASA prepares to send astronauts on a trip around the moon next year, making it the first time people have gone there in more than a half century. The hardware

needed for landing on the moon, however, is still in development. And Isaacman has said that it's

vital for a U.S. landing to happen before arrival, China, gets astronauts to the lunar surface.

Nell Greenfield's voice, NPR News. There are new plaques at the White House

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