September 29, 2013.

U.S. Nears Shutdown as House Votes To Delay Health Law

"February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An' I tell you, no number----"

WASHINGTON----The U.S. government moved to within hours of its first shutdown since 1996, as House Republicans redoubled their drive early Sunday to delay the new health care law and Senate Democrats stood firm against changing the law as a condition of funding federal departments.

"Oh, pack it in!" said the third man.

The standoff left little prospect that Congress could reach agreement on terms for funding the government by midnight Monday, when the current fiscal year expires. A shutdown would leave essential services operating but prompt federal agencies to suspend many functions and furlough hundreds of thousands of workers.

They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone thirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its weekly pay out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.

On a 231-192 vote, the House early Sunday passed a one-year delay of the health law, often called Obamacare, and attached it to a plan to fund the government through Dec. 15. The legislation now goes to the Senate. It also includes a provision repealing a tax on medical devices intended to help finance the health law, which the House approved on a 248-174 vote.