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Sunday, September 22, 2013

Health Care Reform Articles - September 22, 2013

House Bill Links Health Care Law and Budget Plan



WASHINGTON — House Republicans muscled through a stopgap bill Friday that would fund the government only if all spending for President Obama’s health care law is eliminated. Senate Democrats and President Obama quickly made it clear they had no intention of going along, putting the government on a course toward a shutdown unless one side relents.
The 230-to-189 party-line vote in a bitterly divided House set in motion a fiscal confrontation with significant implications — politically and economically — but with an uncertain ending. Without a resolution, large parts of the government could shut down Oct. 1, and a first-ever default on federal debt could follow weeks later.
Each side predicted that the other would be held responsible, but determined House Republicans knew they were taking a risk even as leaders of the party’s establishment warned about the threat of destructive political consequences.
Mr. Obama called House Speaker John A. Boehner on Friday evening but only to reiterate that he would not negotiate with him on raising the federal debt limit and said it was Congress’s constitutional obligation to pay the nation’s bills. Both sides described the call as brief and fruitless.
Senate Democratic leaders prepared to answer the House’s move with a vote in the coming days — possibly on the eve of government funding expiring — to strip the health care provision from the spending bill and send it back to the House with little time for Republicans to change it. Mr. Boehner would then face a decision on how to respond.
After the House vote, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, called out by name Democratic senators running for re-election in Republican states, daring them to stand by the health care law.
“We’re in this fight and we want the Senate to join us,” Mr. Cantor said at a Republican rally celebrating passage of the spending bill.
Visiting Missouri, Mr. Obama struck back at Republicans a few hours after the vote.
“They’re focused on politics,” Mr. Obama told autoworkers at a Ford plant in Liberty. “They’re focused on trying to mess with me; they’re not focused on you.”
In a searing criticism of those threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling next month, causing the United States to default on its debts, Mr. Obama called the potential action “profoundly destructive.” If it happens, he said, “America becomes a deadbeat.”

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