The Senate, which returns Monday afternoon, is expected to overwhelmingly reject a bill passed by the Republican-controlled House this weekend that would delay the full effect of President Obama's health care law as a condition for continuing to finance the government past Monday. But no one — not even House Republicans themselves — seemed to know what would happen next.
Though a shutdown of large portions of the government has seemed increasingly inevitable, some lawmakers said they believed that a last-minute solution might still be reached.
"I still hold up a small hope that the Republicans will come to their senses, that the mainstream Republicans will say 'enough already,'" Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC on Monday, urging the House Republican leadership to put a spending bill without policy prescriptions to a vote on the floor. "The question is, does Speaker Boehner need to engage in something like the ancient practice of sacrifice, this time to the right-wing gods? Do we have to sacrifice the economy, help for millions of middle-class people?"
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, has repeatedly said that Senate Democrats plan to table portions of the House spending bill, including provisions to delay the health care law by one year, repeal a medical device tax and allow businesses to opt out of contraception coverage for their employees. The Senate is set to send back to the House a stripped-down spending bill, giving Republicans just hours to offer an alternate plan before the government would shut down and hundreds of thousands of workers would be furloughed.
Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio had hoped to persuade the unruly conservative members of his conference to save the fight to defund the health care law until a debate on the debt ceiling, in which he believes Republicans hold more leverage and Mr. Obama would be forced to negotiate. But House Republicans were ecstatic Saturday when Mr. Boehner and his leadership team in a closed-door meeting presented their plan to allow Republicans to use the stopgap spending measure to delay the full effect of the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Boehner, however, finds himself in a tough situation. Despite pleas from House Republicans, the Senate will not take up any bills until Monday afternoon, leaving the House with a short window of time to come up with yet another alternative or be blamed for a government shutdown. Mr. Boehner will then need to decide if he wants to put the stripped-down spending bill on the floor for a simple up-or-down vote — something that House conservatives have made clear they find unacceptable, but that has the support of moderate Republicans and Democrats and could avert a shutdown.
On Sunday, House Republicans had already started trying to assign blame, with more than a dozen members holding a news conference on the steps of the Capitol to complain that the Senate had refused to work over the weekend.
"Now today, we see the Senate doors are shut. They're locked," said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. "Senator Harry Reid says it is 'inevitable' that the government is going to shut down. Well, if the Senate doesn't act, it may be inevitable. But we're here to say that the Senate needs to act. Why are they waiting? Why aren't those doors open?"
Speaking on CNBC on Monday morning, Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, echoed her party's view that it is Senate Democrats and Mr. Obama, not House Republicans, who are forcing a possible government shutdown.
"What we want to do is solve the problem, and we've been trying to do it, and we're disappointed that the Senate decided that they didn't want to stay here and work," Ms. Blackburn said. "We've been trying to solve the problem. We're not the ones that want a shutdown."
As legislators try to stave off a shutdown, a few options — albeit unlikely ones — have emerged. House Republicans could pass a short-term measure to finance the government that does not include any of their health care delays, in order to buy more time to come up with another plan. Or House Republicans could try to force Mr. Reid to accept a repeal of the tax on medical devices — a step that many Democrats also support — in exchange for the House's not sending over a bill with new language that would require members of Congress and their staffs, as well as White House staff members, to buy their health insurance on the new exchanges, without any government subsidies.
