Key Republicans Back Away from Obamacare Demands

“Key GOP figures on Wednesday sent their clearest signals that they are abandoning their bid to immediately stop the federal health-care law — the issue that forced the government to shut down — and are scrambling for a fallback strategy,” the Washington Post reports.

“Republican Party leaders, activists and donors now widely acknowledge that the effort to kill President Obama’s signature initiative by hitting the brakes on the government has been a failure. The law has largely disappeared from their calculus as they look for a way out of the impasse over the shutdown and for a way to avoid a possible default on U.S. debt.”

Roll Call notes the effort is being led by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) while Politico reports Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and fellow Republican senators “are quietly seeing whether they can break the political impasse.”

Erick Erickson: “I’m being told by several sources that Speaker Boehner and Majority
Leader Eric Cantor are plotting to give up trying to either defund or
delay Obamacare.”