Continuing a game of who-blinks-first, House Republican leaders on Wednesday promised to vote this week on a budget bill that would temporarily fund the government after Sept. 30 but also defund the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The plan could lead to a showdown pitting the health care law against a government shutdown.

The move comes after GOP leaders in the House floated a plan that would have forced the Senate to vote on pulling the plug on health care reform but also allowed Senate Democrats to defeat it while sending the funding measure directly to the president.

Lacking the needed votes for that plan, the GOP went back to the drawing board and presented a united front during a news conference in the Capitol on Wednesday. At that briefing, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, dismissed the notion that he has lost control of his own party, saying that the lower chamber has a lot of “divergent opinions” and the key to leadership is to listen.

“We're going to continue to do everything we can to repeal the president's failed health care law,” Rep. Boehner said. “This week the House will pass a CR (continuing resolution) that locks the sequester's savings in and defunds Obamacare. The president has signed bills over the past two-and-a-half years to make changes to Obamacare, and I sincerely hope our friends in the Senate have plans to make this an eighth time.”

The office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., announced that the lower chamber — which had scheduled a brief recess next week — would remain in session, possibly through the weekend, to complete the continuing resolution. The House is scheduled to reconvene Sept. 25.

But the House leadership's efforts, which may appease factions within the GOP that are fervently committed to repealing the Affordable Care Act, are not likely to carry weight beyond the House. Any funding bill that includes provisions to defund President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy legislation has no chance of receiving 60 votes in the Senate, and the president would veto any measure that did. When asked about this, Rep. Boehner said he would not predict what the Senate would or would not do.

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“The fight over here has been won,” the Ohio Republican said. “The House has voted 40 times to defund, change Obamacare — to repeal it. It's time for the Senate to have those fights.”

At deadline, a representative for the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had not replied to a request for comment.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the latest move from her Republican colleagues shows they are willing to close down all government operations after the fiscal year ends because of their commitment to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

“Today, Speaker Boehner surrendered the gavel to the Tea Party's desperate attempts to put insurance companies back in charge of the Americans' health care,” Rep. Pelosi said in her statement. “After failing to offer a single jobs bill in this Congress, House Republicans will force their 42nd attempt to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act; now, they're prepared to shut down the government to do so.”

G. William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said there are a few ways the spending fight could play out in the Senate. The upper chamber could simply refuse to consider the House bill after it passes; it could opt to strip the bill of the Affordable Care Act defunding language and send an amended continuing resolution back to the House; or Democratic members could filibuster a motion to proceed on the continuing resolution the House passed, which would require 60 votes to overturn.

“I'm anticipating this will be bounced back to the House and the burden will be on the House one more time,” Mr. Hoagland told Modern Healthcare.

Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, called the current fight a “total mess” and said no one really knows how things will play out and that all options are political guesswork at this point. He also said he doesn't think this will have an effect on the Affordable Care Act unless the Obama administration decides to give ground on the issue.

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“One of the conditions the critics (of the law) are saying: delay implementation or delay the individual mandate,” Mr. Aaron said. “I don't believe the administration can contemplate such a thing. It would be an unthinkable step backwards.”

Meanwhile, the fight over the Affordable Care Act will extend beyond the current spending-bill negotiations. At the news briefing on Wednesday, Rep. Cantor promised that the House GOP will also work to break apart the law as leaders enter discussions on raising the nation's borrowing authority.

“In the coming week, we will unveil a plan to extend our nation's ability to borrow while delaying Obamacare and protecting working, middle-class families from its horrific effects,” Rep. Cantor said.

Jessica Zigmond writes for Modern Healthcare, a sister publication of Business Insurance.