Republicans will tie a one-year delay of Obamacare to the CR. | REUTERS House delays Obamacare

House Republicans forced through a short-term government funding bill that delays Obamacare and permanently repeals a tax on medical devices, setting up their most dramatic face-off ever with President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats.

The vote to delay Obamacare was 231-192, with two Republicans voting against the bill, while two Democrats supported it. The Republicans opposed to the bill were New York Reps. Chris Gibson and Richard Hanna, and the Democrats who supported the measure were North Carolina Rep. Mike McInytre and Utah Rep. Jim Matheson.


The move represents a complete about-face by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the House Republican leadership. They wanted to shift the focus of health care and budgetary squabbles onto the debt ceiling fight, but conservative Republicans honed in on the government funding battle.

This strategy — forced upon Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) by the conservative rank-and-file — dramatically increased the chances of a government shutdown come Oct. 1.

( Government shutdown full coverage)

Boehner didn’t speak on the House floor during the debate before the amendments passed.

“The House has again passed a plan that reflects the American people’s desire to keep the government running and stop the president’s health care law,” Boehner said in a post-vote statement. Repealing the medical device tax will save jobs and delaying the president’s health care law for all Americans is only fair given the exemptions the White House has granted to big businesses and insurance companies.”

He added: “Now that the House has again acted, it’s up to the Senate to pass this bill without delay to stop a government shutdown.”

( PHOTOS: 17 government shutdowns)

The House also passed a bill to fund U.S. troops in case of a shutdown. The chamber further adopted a “conscience clause” that postpones until 2015 an Obamacare requirement that employers cover birth control as part of their health-insurance packages. Their funding resolution keeps government open until Dec. 15 at a level of $986 billion.

Passage of the funding bill late Saturday night, following several hours of acrimonious debate the House, sets the stage for two days of political drama over whether the federal government will actually shut down on Oct. 1.

Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have already warned that the GOP proposal is unacceptable. Reid may not even bring back the Senate into session until Monday afternoon — just hours before a shutdown would begin — to reject the GOP proposal.

( Also on POLITICO: House GOP's 'touch-the-stove' moment)

“Today’s vote by House Republicans is pointless,” Reid said in a statement. “As I have said repeatedly, the Senate will reject any Republican attempt to force changes to the Affordable Care Act through a mandatory government funding bill or the debt ceiling. Furthermore, President Obama has stated that he would veto such measures if they ever reached his desk.”

On Friday, Senate Democrats passed a bill to fund the government until Nov. 15, but kept intact Obamacare.

The two chambers are on a collision course, a standoff that could lead to the first government shutdown since 1996.

( QUIZ: How well do you know the news: Shutdown edition)

This is just the first round of an entire fall filled with fiscal fights. In just days, Congress must figure out how to raise the debt ceiling — Congress must increase the national borrowing limit before Oct. 17. A discussion over government funding for the next fiscal year will also sprout up again before the new year.

Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle believe the ominous turns in the government-funding fight portend an even nastier battle over the debt ceiling, with repercussions that could shake U.S. and global financial markets.

But for many Republicans, this is a watershed moment that’s been long in the making.

( WATCH: Debt ceiling showdown: By the numbers)

Defunding, delaying and otherwise chipping away at Obamacare has been the centerpiece of the House Republican majority since it took control of the chamber in 2011. Obama has changed some portions of his signature legislative achievement, and he has taken unilateral action to delay the mandate that employers provide health insurance to their workers.

In an ideal world that never materialized, Boehner tried to avoid this fight, and direct angst over Obamacare to the debt ceiling battle, where he thought Obama would want to cut a deal that would include replacing the sequester. The Ohio Republican first proposed using the debt ceiling vote as a backstop — something Republicans could look forward to if they didn’t get their way in the CR fight. But the rank-and-file rejected that strategy. Then, leadership sought to have a debt ceiling vote before the one on government funding. Rank-and-file Republicans rejected that as well, saying they wanted to see the ultimate resolution in the CR battle before committing to raising the debt ceiling.

It’s a small group of conservatives that have tied the hands of Boehner, Cantor (R-Va.) and McCarthy (R-Calif.) — just enough Republicans to prevent the leadership from being able to exert its will.

That explains the fits and starts of the past few weeks. Republicans have cycled through several fiscal strategies, all of them proving flawed in the eyes of the conservative base.

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

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