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| An empty hallway in the U.S. Capitol Sunday morning, Sept. 29, 2013, as a government shutdown looms, in Washington. The political and economic stakes mounting with each tick of the clock, the White House and congressional Democrats say a House-approved delay in President Barack Obama's health care law does nothing but push Washington to the brink of the first government shutdown in 17 years. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- With the government teetering on the brink of partial shutdown,
congressional Republicans vowed Sunday to keep using an otherwise
routine federal funding bill to try to attack the president's health
care law.
Congress was closed for the day
after a post-midnight vote in the GOP-run House to delay by a year key
parts of the new health care law and repeal a tax on medical devices, in
exchange for avoiding a shutdown. The Senate was to convene Monday
afternoon, just hours before the shutdown deadline, and Majority Leader
Harry Reid, D-Nev., had already promised that majority Democrats would
kill the House's latest volley.
Since the last
government shutdown 17 years ago, temporary funding bills known as
continuing resolutions have been noncontroversial, with neither party
willing to chance a shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn't
otherwise win. But with health insurance exchanges set to open on
Tuesday, tea-party Republicans are willing to take the risk in their
drive to kill the health care law.
Action in
Washington was limited mainly to the Sunday talk shows and a barrage of
press releases as Democrats and Republicans rehearsed arguments for
blaming each other if the government in fact closes its doors at
midnight Monday.
"You're going to shut down
the government if you can't prevent millions of Americans from getting
affordable care," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
"The
House has twice now voted to keep the government open. And if we have a
shutdown, it will only be because when the Senate comes back, Harry
Reid says, `I refuse even to talk,'" said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who
led a 21-hour broadside against allowing the temporary funding bill to
advance if stripped clean of a tea party-backed provision to derail
Obamacare. The effort ultimately failed.
The
battle started with a House vote to pass the short-term funding bill
with a provision that would have eliminated the federal dollars needed
to put President Barack Obama's health care overhaul into place. The
Senate voted along party lines to strip that out and lobbed the measure
back to the House.
The latest House measure,
passed early Sunday by a near party-line vote of 231-192, sent back to
the Senate two key changes: a one-year delay of key provisions of the
health insurance law and repeal of a new tax on medical devices that
partially funds it, steps that still go too far for The White House and
its Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.
Senate
rules often make it difficult to act quickly, but the chamber can act on
the House's latest proposals by simply calling them up and killing
them.
Eyes were turning to the House for its
next move. One of its top leaders vowed the House would not simply give
in to Democrats' demands to pass the Senate's "clean" funding bill.
"The
House will get back together in enough time, send another provision not
to shut the government down, but to fund it, and it will have a few
other options in there for the Senate to look at again," said the No. 3
House Republican leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California. "We are not
shutting the government down."
On the other hand, Democrats said the GOP's bravado may fade as the deadline to avert a shutdown nears.
Asked
whether he could vote for a "clean" temporary funding bill, Rep. Raul
Labrador, R-Idaho, said he couldn't. But Labrador added, "I think
there's enough people in the Republican Party who are willing to do
that. And I think that's what you're going to see."
McCarthy
wouldn't say what changes Republicans might make. He appeared to
suggest that a very short-term measure might pass at the last minute,
but GOP aides said that was unlikely.
And
rumors Saturday night that GOP leaders might include a provision to deny
lawmakers and staff aides their employer health care contributions from
the government had cooled by Sunday afternoon. Lawmakers and
congressional aides are required to purchase health insurance on the
Affordable Care Act exchanges, but the administration has taken steps to
make sure they continue to receive their 72 percent employer
contribution.
Republicans argued that Reid should have convened the Senate on Sunday to act on the measure.
"If
the Senate stalls until Monday afternoon instead of working today, it
would be an act of breathtaking arrogance by the Senate Democratic
leadership," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "They will be
deliberately bringing the nation to the brink of a government shutdown."
In
the event lawmakers blow the Monday deadline, about 800,000 workers
would be forced off the job without pay. Some critical services such as
patrolling the borders, inspecting meat and controlling air traffic
would continue. Social Security benefits would be sent, and the Medicare
and Medicaid health care programs for the elderly and poor would
continue to pay doctors and hospitals.
The
Senate was not scheduled to meet until midafternoon Monday, 10 hours
before a shutdown would begin, and even some Republicans said privately
they feared that Reid held the advantage in the fast-approaching end
game.
Republicans argued that they had already
made compromises; for instance, their latest measure would leave intact
most parts of the health care law that have taken effect, including
requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing
conditions and to let families' plans cover children up to age 26. They
also would allow insurers to deny contraception coverage based on
religious or moral objections.
Tea party
lawmakers in the House - egged on by Cruz - forced GOP leaders to
abandon an earlier plan to deliver a "clean" stopgap spending bill to
the Senate and move the fight to another must-do measure looming in
mid-October: a bill to increase the government's borrowing cap to avert a
market-rattling, first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
McCarthy
appeared on "Fox News Sunday," while Cruz and Labrador were on NBC's
"Meet the Press."
Van Hollen appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation."
