The bill heads for likely defeat in the U.S. Senate.
The GOP-controlled House voted today to cripple President Barack Obama’s health care law as part of a risky ploy that threatens a government shutdown in a week and a half.
The fight is coming on a stopgap funding measure required to keep the government fully running after the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year. Typically, such measures advance with sweeping bipartisan support, but Tea Party activists forced GOP leaders — against their better judgment — to add a provision to cripple the health care law that’s the signature accomplishment of Obama’s first term.
The 230-189 vote sets the stage for a confrontation with the Democratic-led Senate, which promises to strip the health care provision from the bill next week and challenge the House to pass it as a simple, straightforward funding bill that Obama will sign.
The top Senate Democrat has pronounced the bill dead and calls the House exercise a “waste of time.” The White House promises Obama would veto the measure in the unlikely event it reaches his desk.
The temporary funding bill is needed because Washington, D.C.’s longstanding budget stalemate has derailed the annual appropriations bills required to fund federal agency operations.
The fight over the must-do funding bill comes as Washington is bracing for an even bigger battle over increasing the government’s borrowing cap to make sure the government can pay its bills. Democrats say they won’t be held hostage and allow Republicans to use the must-pass measures as leverage to win legislative victories that they otherwise couldn’t.