But 57 minutes later, and with almost no debate, the Senate killed the House health care provisions and sent the stopgap spending bill right back, free of policy prescriptions. Earlier in the day, the Senate had taken less than 25 minutes to convene and dispose of a weekend budget proposal by the House Republicans. 
 
 “They’ve lost their minds,” Mr. Reid said, before disposing of the House bill. “They keep trying to do the same thing over and over again.” 
 
 The federal government was then left essentially to run out of money at midnight, the end of the fiscal year, although the president signed a measure late Monday that would allow members of the military to continue to be paid. 
 
 “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job,” Mr. Obama said in the White House briefing room as the clock ticked to midnight. 
 
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 Mr. Obama called House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, but they spoke for less than 10 minutes, without any sign of progress. 
 
 “I talked to the president tonight,” the speaker said on the House floor. He summed up Mr. Obama’s remarks as: “I’m not going to negotiate. I’m not going to negotiate.” 
 
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 The House’s most ardent conservatives were resigned to seeing through their war on the health care law to its inevitable conclusion, a shutdown that could test voters’ patience with Republican brinkmanship. 
 
 Cracks in the party were opening into fissures of frustration. 
 
 “You have this group that keeps saying somehow if you’re not with them, you’re for Obamacare,” said Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California. “If you’re not with exactly their plan, exactly what they want to do, then you’re somehow for Obamacare, and it’s just getting a little old.” 
 
 “It’s moronic to shut down the government over this,” he continued. 
 
 It was far from certain that Republicans could remain unified on their insistence on health care concessions if a shutdown lasted for some time. Asked whether Republicans could hold together through the end of the week, Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia, one of the more conservative members, answered: “I don’t know. I don’t know.” 
 
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 Earlier Monday, the Senate voted 54 to 46 along party lines to kill the previous House plan immediately after ending a weekend break. Senators then sent the House a bill to finance the government through Nov. 15 without policy prescriptions. 
 
 But House leaders would have none of it, again demanding a significant hit to the health law as a price for keeping the government open. 
 
 Mr. Reid laid into Mr. Boehner and put the blame for a shutdown solely on his shoulders. “Our negotiation is over with,” he said. 
 
 “You know with a bully you cannot let them slap you around, because they slap you around today, they slap you five or six times tomorrow,” Mr. Reid, a former boxer, continued. “We are not going to be bullied.” 
 
 In addition to criticizing Mr. Boehner, Mr. Reid excoriated what he called the “banana Republican mind-set” of the House. He called on the speaker to put the Senate bill up for a vote, which would almost certainly pass in the House because of overwhelming Democratic support and backing from moderate Republicans. 
 
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 In one of their final moves, House Republicans attached language to a government funding bill that would delay the mandate that individuals obtain health insurance and would force members of Congress, their staffs and White House staff members to buy their health insurance on the new exchanges without any government subsidies. 
 
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 Conservative activists have portrayed the language as ensuring that Congress and the White House would be held to the same strictures that apply to ordinary Americans under the health care law. In fact, the language would put poorly paid junior staff members at a disadvantage. 
 
 Most people buying coverage on the exchanges will receive subsidies through generous tax credits. Most Americans will still get their insurance from their employers, who will continue to receive a tax deduction for the cost of that care. Under the House language, lawmakers and their staffs, executive branch political appointees, the White House staff, and the president and vice president would have to pay the entire cost of health insurance out of pocket. 
 
 Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, said junior staff members were “being used as a sacrifice” for a political gambit, driven by Republican hard-liners in the Senate like Ted Cruz of Texas, that will go nowhere. 
 
 “They locked themselves into this situation, the dead end that Ted Cruz created,” Mr. King said. 
 
 The budget confrontation — which threatened to close federal offices and facilities, idling thousands of workers around the country — stemmed from an unusual push by Republicans to undo a law that has been on the books for three years, through a presidential election, and that the Supreme Court largely upheld in 2012. A major part of the law is set to take effect Tuesday: the opening of insurance exchanges, where people without insurance will be able to obtain coverage. 
 
 Republicans argue that the administration has itself delayed elements of the law. They say it should be postponed for at least a year. 
 
 Democrats say Republicans are being driven by the most extreme elements of their party to use the federal budget to extract concessions on health care that they could not win through the traditional legislative process. “The scary thing about the period we’re in right now is there is no clear end,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland. ||||| House and Senate leadership aides in both parties are increasingly convinced the federal government will close for the first time in more than 17 years on Tuesday morning. 
 
 There is still time to avoid such a climactic stalemate, the aides acknowledged. But unless there is a dramatic change in momentum, the likelihood that a partisan showdown over government funding and the future of Obamacare could lead to a shutdown has increased dramatically. 
 
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 reset Obama to Congress: 'Pay our bills on time' Turn the Table: Threat of a government shutdown 
 
 With a special closed-door meeting meeting of House Republicans set for noon Saturday, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his top lieutenants have not yet formulated their next play in their quest to keep the government open. It’s not even clear that the House will vote on Saturday. 
 
 (PHOTOS: How well do you know the news: Shutdown edition) 
 
 There have been repeated contacts between GOP and Democratic leaders and senior aides in recent days but no negotiations of any sort – or sign those are about to start – to resolve the standoff. Both sides feel they have made their position known to the other side, and are unwilling to make any concessions at this moment. 
 
 Senior House GOP sources say Republicans are likely to send the Senate an amended government-funding bill, but not a proposed one-week stop gap measure. Without that one-week funding bill - needed while Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House try to reach a compromise agreement - the federal government will beginning shutting down “non-essential” operations on Tuesday morning. 
 
 House Republicans are considering adding several provisions to the two-month, $986 billion continuing resolution passed by the Senate on Friday, and then sending the bill back to the the upper chamber. These options include: a one-year delay of the individual mandate called for in the 2010 Affordable Care Act; an end to government’s contribution to health care for lawmakers and Hill staffers; a repeal of the medical devices tax that helps fund Obamacare; or the elimination of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a controversial Obamacare provision designed to hold down Medicare costs. 
 
 (WATCH - Debt ceiling showdown: By the numbers) 
 
 Reid, though, has already warned Boehner that he will block any House GOP funding bill with Obamacare-related provisions. Reid would move to table any House bill that contains those additional provisions favored by House Republicans. Reid could do that with a simple majority vote on Monday, setting up a government shutdown the following morning. 
 
 ”We are going to accept nothing that relates to Obamacare. There’s a time and place for everything and this is not that time or place,” Reid said at a press conference following Friday’s vote. 
 
 President Barack Obama warned Republicans to “think about who you’re hurting” by letting the government shut down and said a closure would “throw a wrench into the gears of our economy at a time when those gears have gained some traction.” 
 
 Boehner, however, is under heavy pressure from his tea party and conservative House GOP colleagues to move to stop Obamacare’s implementation, whatever the political risk, including a shutdown. 
 
 (VIDEO: Major players to watch in shutdown showdown on Capitol Hill) 
 
 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is privately meeting with hard-line House conservatives to try to get them to hold out against any spending bill that does not defund or delay Obamacare — set to begin on Oct. 1, the same date government funding runs out. A House GOP debt ceiling package loaded with conservative goodies, including a provision delaying Obamacare’s individual mandate for a year, couldn’t even get enough support to make it to the floor, demonstrating how little sway Boehner holds over his rank-and-file members at this point. 
 
 Friday saw a new headache for the Ohio Republican - GOP lawmakers who are pushing back against others in the party who want to end the government contribution to the health insurance of lawmakers and staff. 
 
 Some of Boehner’s (R-Ohio) top allies marched into his Capitol office Friday afternoon to beg the speaker not to cut off health-insurance subsidies, which are deeply unpopular with the party base. Under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill — including Boehner — the Obama administration ruled in late July that lawmakers could continue receiving the employer contribution even as they enroll in new health insurance exchanges. 
 
 (PHOTOS: John Boehner’s life and career) 
 
 On Friday, Boehner told the group — GOP Reps. Tom Cole (Okla.), Duncan Hunter, Jr. (Calif.), Mike Turner (Ohio), Kay Granger (Texas) and Anders Crenshaw (Fla.) — to canvass the House Republican Conference to find out what might get support, according to sources familiar with the talks. 
 
 For the moment, it appears that those lawmakers may win that fight, despite repeated calls from Republicans like Rep. Mike McCaul (Texas) and Sen.David Vitter (La.) to get rid of the subsidy, similar to that other Americans get from their employers. 
 
 “For the last 25 years, members of Congress have been treated like every other federal employee,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a staunch opponent of cutting those subsidies who spoke up against the idea in a closed party meeting. “This idea of trying to vilify us now …, that is not the right thing to do.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama to Congress: ‘Pay our bills on time’) 
 
 Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), once a congressional staffer himself, said he was “a little concerned” with cutting staff health insurance subsidies. 
 
 Yet it’s obvious – and a huge understatement – to say the House GOP leadership is in a difficult predicament right now. Reid and Obama have refused to yield any ground on either the CR or the even more high stakes debt ceiling fight. The Treasury Department has warned the federal government will hit its $16.7 trillion borrowing limit on Oct. 17. 
 
 Obama is not interested in giving away pieces of his health care law just to fund government’s operations. And Boehner’s conservatives – who are taking their lead from Cruz – are not interested in giving up on their fight to defund Obamacare. There’s next to no trust in leadership’s strategies, and even less in Boehner himself. 
 
 (VIDEO: Mitt Romney thinks there's a better way to stop Obamacare) 
 
 The last few weeks have been a game of whack-a-mole for Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.): they’ve cycled through a number of strategies to both fund the government, and lift the debt limit. But each time they do, the party’s conservative wing shoots it down and demands a new plan. 
 
 GOP leadership will try once again to wrangle support for something – anything – on Saturday, when they meet in a closed session in the Capitol basement. House leadership said they might not even vote on a CR Saturday; that vote could slip until Sunday, Republicans lawmakers and aides said.
– The Senate has voted 54 to 46 to reject House amendments to the continuing resolution—including the one that would delay ObamaCare. The vote split evenly along party lines, and increases the odds of a government shutdown, the Washington Post reports. As Slate points out, this is the second time in as many weeks that the House and Senate have recited this play; the Senate last week stripped out a provision that would have defunded ObamaCare entirely. Now, it's Boehner's move once more. Earlier today, President Obama said he was "not at all resigned" to a shutdown, and urged lawmakers to "set aside the short-term politics" and make a deal, the Hill reports. The shutdown hits at midnight unless something is done to stop it. Senate Republicans have been floating the idea of passing a quick, one-week extension to give the sides more time to negotiate, but Harry Reid says he strongly opposes it. Budget Chair Patty Murray agreed, asking, "Why go through this for another five days?"