House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday urged Republicans to act immediately to restore ObamaCare insurance subsidies newly withheld by the Trump administration, saying Democrats may use emergency spending bills to secure the payments.

She added that restoring the subsidies was a "matter of life and death."

Pelosi said the most favorable route for ensuring disbursement of the cost-sharing reductions would be stand-alone legislation.

“We’d like it to be in a free-standing bill next Tuesday,” she said during a hastily staged press briefing in the Capitol.

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But with GOP leaders opposing the ObamaCare subsidies, Democrats are also eying other legislative vehicles, including must-pass legislation to extend government funding in December and any number of emergency spending bills that might arrive before then as Congress scrambles to respond to a series of devastating natural disasters.

“There’s a stand-alone vehicle, a vehicle that’s attached to a supplemental, or down the road in the omnibus, but that’s pretty far down the road. Hopefully, we could resolve it sooner,” she said.

“I’m not suggesting any one of them. I’m just saying these are the vehicles that are leaving the station,” Pelosi added. “There may be others, we’ll see.”

Pelosi warned that Democrats would not accept the payments as a condition of a budget package that included new funding for the southern border wall favored by Trump.

“No, that won’t work,” she warned.

Hours earlier, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer Chuck SchumerVideo of Lindsey Graham arguing against nominating a Supreme Court justice in an election year goes viral Graham signals support for confirming a Supreme Court nominee this year Pelosi orders Capitol flags at half-staff to honor Ginsburg MORE (D-N.Y.) suggested Democrats would have their best shot at securing the payments as part of an omnibus package to extend government spending, which expires Dec. 8.

"I think we're going to have a very good opportunity in the omnibus to get this done in a bipartisan way, if we can't get it done sooner," Schumer told reporters on a press call.

President Trump has threatened each month of his presidency to stop paying the subsidies, federal payments to insurance companies that reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income patients under ObamaCare. Late Thursday night, the White House announced it would finally do just that, saying it doesn’t have the legal authority to make the payments under the Affordable Care Act.

House Republicans had sued the Obama administration over the subsidies, arguing they’re illegal because Congress never appropriated the money. Last year, a federal judge ruled in their favor, leading the Obama administration to appeal the decision.

Democrats had tried to include language guaranteeing the payments as part of a 2017 omnibus spending bill signed into law in May, but Republicans rejected that provision.

The payments were previously expected to total roughly $7 billion this year, $9 billion next year and $100 billion over a decade. The Congressional Budget Office has warned that eliminating the payments would cause premiums for ObamaCare plans to spike by 20 percent, while about 1 million people would lose insurance coverage next year alone.

Those potentially harmful effects have caused a number of Republicans to support the continuation of the payments. But House Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanKenosha will be a good bellwether in 2020 At indoor rally, Pence says election runs through Wisconsin Juan Williams: Breaking down the debates MORE (R-Wis.) said Thursday night that he’s backing Trump’s move to halt them, calling the decision “a monumental affirmation of Congress’s authority and the separation of powers.”

“ObamaCare has proven itself to be a fatally flawed law,” Ryan said in a statement, “and the House will continue to work with Trump administration to provide the American people a better system.”

He did not say how the House would do that.

While the House passed an ObamaCare repeal bill earlier in the year, Senate Republicans have failed repeatedly to replicate the feat.

Sens. Lamar Alexander Andrew (Lamar) Lamar AlexanderToobin: McConnell engaging in 'greatest act of hypocrisy in American political history' with Ginsburg replacement vote Chamber of Commerce endorses McSally for reelection Trump health officials grilled over reports of politics in COVID-19 response MORE (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray Patricia (Patty) Lynn MurrayTrump health officials grilled over reports of politics in COVID-19 response CDC director pushes back on Caputo claim of 'resistance unit' at agency The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by The Air Line Pilots Association - Pence lauds Harris as 'experienced debater'; Trump, Biden diverge over debate prep MORE (D-Wash.) had been working earlier in the year on legislation securing the subsidy payments, but that effort was shelved when GOP leaders last month took another shot at repealing ObamaCare. That effort failed, raising the possibility that the Alexander-Murray effort may be revived.

Pelosi on Friday said she has great trust in Murray to negotiate a compromise favorable to Democrats. But she declined to say how close the sides might be on a deal.

“It will be as close as the Republican majority enables it to be,” she said.

Pelosi charged that Trump’s move to withhold the payments is just the latest effort by Republicans to undermine ObamaCare in order to validate the critics’ claims that it’s failing.

“The GOP will try to blame the Affordable Care Act, but they have purposefully, brazenly, cruelly and spitefully acted to sabotage the law and the health care it provides,” she said.

“Congress must act immediately clarifying the language to restore the vital cost-sharing reduction payments and reversing the chaos the president has tried to sow on America’s health,” she added.