Despite having two previous attempts to chip away at the Affordable Care Act rejected by the Senate, House Republican plan to make yet another attempt this evening as the clock winds down to a likely government shutdown:
With just hours to go until the government shuts down, House Republicans will try to pass a bill that would delay the mandate that individuals buy health insurance and would cancel health-insurance subsidies for members of Congress and staff, the president and administration appointees, according to multiple sources.
Those provisions would be attached to a government-funding bill, which will almost certainly be rejected by the Senate, since Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he wouldn’t accept changes to Obamacare in the government funding negotiations. On Monday afternoon, the Senate rejected the House’s last government funding bill, which delayed Obamacare for a year and repealed the medical device tax.
The government runs out of money at midnight, and this most recent move all but ensures a shutdown. The plan was announced at a meeting of House Republicans at 2 p.m. Staff was ejected from the meeting.
Not even all Republicans agree with this move. New York Rep. Peter King stood up in a closed party meeting Monday afternoon and said he was opposed to the measure. Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks suggested House Republicans try to add to Obamacare “federal judges that approves this mess,” referring to court rulings approving the Affordable Care Act.
“We’re going to cut our salary by $5,000 to $10,000, but the president should live under Obamacare too,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), one of President Barack Obama’s chief antagonists in the House.
The House Rules Committee will be meeting to begin the process of bringing this new CR to the floor, and that vote should occur sometime after 6pm or 7pm tonight. At the point, it will go to the Senate, which will of course reject it just at it rejected the two previous CR’s. At that point, the question will be what the House does next. A shutdown would then follow immediately at midnight unless the House decides to approve a “clean” CR that doesn’t touch the Affordable Care Act at all. Right now, that doesn’t seem very likely.
One intriguing rumor is that moderate Republicans in the House may stage a revolt of their own, leading to the question of whether there are even enough votes to pass this third CR tonight. If that bill fails, then the ball game in the House may change very rapidly. If it passes, we’ll be back to square one and there may be yet one more run at at CR tonight, or they may just give up.
