Would Republicans really shut down the government to stop ObamaCare?

Tea Partiers are threatening to do whatever it takes to block the heart of the health-care law

Mike Lee
(Image credit: Pete Marovich/ZUMA Press/Corbis)

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is leading a GOP push in Senate to shut down the government in the fall to prevent the implementation of looming reforms under President Obama's health care law. Lee, a Tea Party hero, told Fox News on Monday that refusing to fund ObamaCare was the last remaining way to stop the law's individual mandate and insurance exchanges from launching at the start of next year.

In theory, Republicans could pull it off by blocking a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Such a drastic move, just months before the beginning of a mid-term election year, is bound to be controversial with voters who are growing tired of partisan dysfunction in Washington.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.