The U.S. Senate on Friday voted to temporarily finance the federal government through mid-December and to pay for Obamacare for the next year — dealing a major blow to Republicans who backed a House-backed resolution that would have stripped funding for President Barack Obama's beleaguered healthcare plan.
"I would like to ask my colleagues: 'Do you want to be responsible for killing jobs? … Do you want to be responsible for making full-time work, part-time work? If not, then vote 'no,'" Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate's Republican whip, said before the final vote.
"This is a second chance," Cornyn added. "We don't get many second chances in life."
The final vote was 54-44, along party lines. The amendment to strip the Obamacare funding from the House bill was sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.
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The Obamacare amendment had come after the Senate voted —also 54-44 and along party lines — to end debate on the measure that the House passed last week that would have removed the healthcare funding from the continuing resolution to keep the government running beginning on Tuesday.
"We're out of time," Mikulski said after proposing the amendment. "The government runs out of money in three days."
She did not speak to the Obamacare portion of the amendement.
The GOP senators who voted against ending debate on the Senate floor also refused to support the final bill with the amendment that pays for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The Senate version will now be sent back to the House, where
Speaker John Boehner has said that the lower chamber will not pass a “clean” spending bill — one that lacks defunding Obamacare — but has also said that he had “no interest in seeing a government shutdown.”
In addition, President Obama reiterated at the White House on Friday that he would not sign any legislation that required him to "gut or repeal" the healthcare law.
"That's not going to happen," he said. The president added that the Obamacare exchanges on which Americans can buy insurance, "will be open for business on Tuesday, no matter what, even if there is a government shutdown. That's a done deal.
"If Republicans have specific ideas on how to genuinely improve the law — rather than gut it, rather than delay it, rather than repeal it — I'm happy to work with them on that through the normal democratic processes," Obama said. "But that will not happen under the threat of a shutdown."
In response to the president's remarks, Boehner said in a statement: “The House will take action that reflects the fundamental fact that Americans don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want the train wreck that is Obamacare.
"Grandstanding from the president, who refuses to even be a part of the process, won’t bring Congress any closer to a resolution,” the Ohio Republican said.
Congress is expected to work through the weekend to hammer out a compromise resolution to keep the government running past Monday, when the fiscal year ends, and addresses House opposition to financing Obamacare.
If GOP legislators continue their demand that Obamacare be defunded, delayed or otherwise challenged, the chambers could easily be at an impasse by midnight on Monday.
According to Fox News, the series of Senate votes began when the body approved the initial version of the House resolution, 79-19, which would keep the government open while defunding Obamacare.
Several Republicans joined Democrats in voting "yes" on that vote, ignoring appeals by GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and other conservatives to stall the vote.
That first roll call had put Republicans in a difficult position, and prompted much public infighting.
Tea Party-aligned Republicans like Cruz, who spoke 21 hours and 19 minutes against Obamacare on the floor this week, argued that Republicans should stop the bill.
Though the bill technically defunded the healthcare law, which Cruz and his colleagues wanted, they argued that since Reid would restore the funding, they should vote "no."
Cornyn and several other Republicans rejected this logic.
"I don't understand how I can otherwise vote on a matter that I want to see passed," he said.
The Friday vote capped a tumultuous week in the Senate, one that saw Cruz's marathon speech, senators trading myriad accusations against one another, and political maneuvering and posturing by party leaders in both congressional bodies.
Reaction from GOP senators was swift and strong after the Friday vote.
“Today, I proudly voted to defund Obamacare, and I am proud that every Senate Republican has united in support of the House-passed defund Obamacare provision," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "I only wish that more Senate Democrats, many of whom were responsible for Obamacare’s passage into law, would have voted with us.
“With Democrats in control of the Senate, we needed Democrats to join with the American people who want Obamacare stopped in its tracks," Graham added. "Based upon the Democrats unanimous votes in support of funding Obamacare, they must not have gotten the message.
“Obamacare is, has been, and will remain a financial disaster for our nation.”
Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina noted that he had voted "56 times to defeat, dismantle, and defund Obamacare."
Since the healthcare law's passage in 2010, "the evidence has confirmed our worst fears," Burr added. "It is putting a wet blanket on job creation, squeezing more of Americans' hard-earned take-home pay, increasing healthcare costs, and decreasing access to quality healthcare.
"That is why my colleagues and I have never given up the fight to repeal this law in its entirety and replace it with patient-centered reforms that increase access and affordability to quality care and put patients and doctors back in charge," Burr said.
“This most recent threat of shutdown happens at the same time as millions of Americans are forced to deal with the pending implementation of more parts of Obamacare," said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. "Unfortunately, the negative effects of Obamacare don't stop at the hospital door. They aren't limited to just our pocketbooks. If you ask Americans what's the most important issue to them, they'll tell you it's the lack of good jobs in this country. Obamacare kills jobs.
“I will vote against any attempt by the Democrat majority to reinstate Obamacare funding in the continuing resolution," Portman added. "I hope Democrats will instead work with us to repeal Obamacare and replace it with patient-centered, market-driven reforms that actually lower costs while expanding access.”
And Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, lamented how Senate Democrats "chose to stand with their party bosses rather than defend middle-class families, workers, and employers who are being crushed by Obamacare.
"Healthcare premiums continue to increase, more and more Americans are losing their healthcare, and businesses are cutting hours or not hiring — hitting lower-income and middle-class families the hardest," Thune added. "It’s time to give families and the economy a break from Obamacare by permanently delaying the law for all Americans.”
The Associated Press also contributed to this report.
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