Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are about to lock horns over Obamacare — part of a House-Senate clash that needs to be resolved by Friday to avert a government shutdown.

McConnell promised moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine that he would prop up President Barack Obama’s signature health law in a must-pass, year-end spending bill — so long as she backs tax reform. But Ryan’s more conservative conference is flatly rejecting that idea and urging the Wisconsin Republican to stand firm against his Senate counterpart.


“It’s very frustrating that this is getting thrown in there. Why didn’t the Senate just pass our health care bill?” House Republican Conference Vice Chairman Doug Collins of Georgia said of the failed Obamacare repeal push.

The disagreement could make for an awkward dynamic: The two most powerful men in Congress have worked side by side for months on the biggest rewrite of the tax code in three decades. But just as they’re about to achieve that goal, they’ll be squaring off over whether to fund Obamacare subsidies.

At stake is more than just the Ryan-McConnell relationship. GOP leaders must resolve the issue by Friday night in a temporary funding bill or watch the government shut down — a scenario that Republicans believe would cripple their 2018 reelection prospects and so remains unlikely. GOP sources, however, say the two leaders won’t likely find a solution until after tax reform passes Congress on Wednesday, giving them only a couple days to strategize.

The subsidies debate also distracts Republicans from their own spending fight with Democrats, whose votes they’ll need to keep the government open past Friday’s shutdown deadline. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, has upped his own tough talk, suggesting his caucus may not vote for a spending bill if they don’t win additional Democratic priorities or if Republicans add controversial abortion language to win over the House.

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If Schumer doesn't back the subsidies language — or the funding bill altogether — it's possible that McConnell won't have the votes to move the legislation through his own chamber, letting Ryan off the hook.

“We need to get it passed,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said of the cost-sharing subsidies, or CSRs. “Mitch says we’re going to vote on it and hopefully the House will get around to where they can be for it.”

Complicating matters in the latest House-Senate feud: House Republicans, already furious that McConnell fumbled the Obamacare repeal effort this summer, have been simmering over the Senate’s unwillingness to even try to pass GOP spending bills this fall. They’re also upset that the Senate provision doesn’t include abortion prohibitions in the new Obamacare funding.

But Senate Republicans feel the House needs to fall in line behind a measure they believe will stabilize floundering Obamacare markets and allow McConnell to keep his word to Collins.

“Sen. McConnell has made a commitment to Sen. Collins, and he feels obligated to follow through,” said No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Caught in the middle is a speaker who’s gone mum. Ryan will not say how he intends to handle the matter, perhaps because deliberations are still fluid. But some senior House Republican sources don't see how he can accept McConnell's deal with Collins.

Late Tuesday evening, House GOP leadership came up with a new funding strategy: pass a "clean," short-term government funding bill — then adjourn and leave town. That would put the onus on the Senate to ultimately accept whatever bill the House sends them, which would not include CSR payments.

The question becomes: Does McConnell hold his ground, attach the CSR payments and try to volley the measure back to the House? Or tell Collins CSRs will have to wait until next year?

As of Wednesday afternoon, McConnell had planned to add the Obamacare subsidy legislation drafted by the bipartisan duo Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to any House-passed funding, according to senior Senate Republicans.

Some believe that may change.

During a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday morning, Republicans from across the House conference urged Ryan to keep CSRs from the House floor.

One such member was Rep. Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican who’s not known for bucking leadership. Buschon told leadership that he couldn’t vote for a spending bill codifying Obamacare’s health care subsidies — and got nods of agreement from others in the conference.

If the speaker refuses the CSR payments, he won’t be going back on any promise. Ryan, after all, never vowed that the payments would pass the House. Rank-and-file members also say he’d build goodwill with the conference by refusing McConnell — and could face an internal backlash if he were to cave.

House Republicans have fumed for months to the speaker that the House seems subservient to the Senate.

“Right now, it feels like the House has no power,” Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said in a recent interview. Fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania agreed in a short interview Tuesday evening: “I’m asking myself: What’s the point of being a member of Congress if all you do is wait for the Senate to tell you what they want and then say, ‘OK’? That’s our position right now.”

McConnell could change his mind and not include Alexander-Murray in the funding bill, but doing so would anger Senate Republicans who feel they need to do something to help the Obamacare markets now that they’re repealing the law’s individual mandate as part of tax reform. Plus, McConnell would be breaking his word to Collins.

“Were committed to doing it,” Cornyn said. “My view is we need to do Alexander-Murray and Collins-Nelson anyway, particularly now that we repealed the individual mandate.” Collins and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) have another bill to help the Obamacare markets.

Some Republicans are hoping they might be able to find a middle ground: One idea being circulated to make the Obamacare subsidies more palatable to conservatives includes adding a provision prohibiting federal funding of abortions.

Anti-abortion groups, led by the Susan B. Anthony List, have encouraged lawmakers to include such restrictions in the bill — something some conservatives say they would need to see at a minimum, if that can even win them on its own.

But that idea may not garner the 60 votes needed in the Senate. Democrats argue that the restrictions go beyond the so-called Hyde Amendment — the decades-old language that currently bars federal funding of abortion — to restrict how women can use their private dollars on insurance plans that cover abortion. And Schumer said Tuesday the abortion language would “kill it altogether,” blasting the GOP for not negotiating in good faith.

“A good faith effort would entail them talking to Patty Murray and talking to us. They are not,” he said. “A good faith effort would not be laying down a marker that it must have the Hyde Amendment in it, that'll kill it altogether.”

Senate Republicans have been working to resolve the spat by leaning on the White House to promise to better enforce the existing prohibitions on federal funding of abortion, which they say the Obama administration didn’t do. Technically, they note, existing law already prohibits federal funding of abortion — it even requires insurance companies to set up separate accounts for abortion.

“Under the law, properly implemented, there should be no possible way for federal funds to be used for elective abortions. And maybe it’s a problem with the implementation of the law more than the law itself,” Alexander said.

A promise from the White House, however, is unlikely to sway many House conservatives.

“Probably still not good enough,” said Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee.