US government reopens as Republican effort to derail health act collapses

An effort by US Republicans to derail the Affordable Care Act that shut down the federal government for three weeks and threatened a default that rattled financial markets around the world collapsed Wednesday in what is widely seen as a debacle for the party.

The standoff ended late Wednesday night when the Senate and then the House of Representatives passed a temporary spending measure that will finance the government until 15 January and raise the nation’s debt limit until 7 February. The bill passed the Senate 81-18 and the House by a vote of 285-144. President Barack Obama signed the legislation around 12:30 am Thursday.

The standoff began 29 September when the Republican led House of Representatives passed a continuing budget resolution that contained a provision that would have defunded the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 healthcare reform law often called “Obamacare.”

The Democratic majority in the Senate rejected the House bill and sent a version back that did not have the defunding provision. The House, in turn, responded by passing a new version of the bill that would delay the healthcare law by one year, allow employers and healthcare providers …