House GOP leaders are considering whether to tie a one-year delay of Obamacare's individual mandate to the continuing resolution. It's one of many options that could be used as a bargaining chip to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 30, according to multiple sources. However, if Senate Democrats reject the bargain, as they are likely to do, the gambit could actually make it more difficult to meet the deadline for keeping the government open. The Senate is currently considering the House-passed stop-gap spending bill and it's likely that Democrats will succeed this week in scrubbing the measure of the defund Obamacare language. House Republicans put that language in the CR in order to secure votes from the far-right wing of their conference. Should it come back to the House without Obamacare defunding language, Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and his lieutenants will be forced to come up with a new plan to push the bill over the chamber's finish line. (more…)
