House GOP risks shutdown with another Obamacare fight
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans plan to vote Saturday on what is likely to be a doomed strategy to halt President Obama’s healthcare law as a condition for keeping the government funded past a midnight Monday deadline, making at a shutdown all but inevitable.
House GOP leaders assembled lawmakers Saturday for a closed-door session where the proposal was being presented, according to an aide not authorized to speak publicly about the plan.
Republicans are demanding a one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act, as well as a repeal of a tax the healthcare law imposes on medical-device manufacturers, the source said.
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They will also propose a separate bill to ensure military troops continue to be paid in the event of a shutdown. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had little choice but to continue the hard-line strategy to appease his most conservative flank -- dozens of whom signed on to the idea late Friday, after the Senate voted to keep the government running while also protecting Obamacare.
But Obama has vowed not to yield on his signature legislative achievement, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Senate Democrats would not accept another attempt by House Republicans to derail the law.
Without agreement, government is set to shut down on Tuesday, the first day of the new fiscal year, furloughing workers, closing museums and halting routine government services in a potential disruption unseen since a GOP-led House last pushed a shutdown during the Clinton administration in 1995-96.
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