Starting today, the federal government will enact cuts to non-essential functions, following Congress' failure to come to agreement over a continuing resolution to fund the government past Sept. 30.
Last night, the Senate again stripped the House's one-year delay of the individual mandate from its version of funding legislation, and the two bodies were unable to come to an agreement by the midnight deadline.
HHS said it will furlough more than half of its employees during the shutdown, and research funding by AHRQ, CDC and NIH will reduce drastically. Payments for physician training at children's hospitals will also cease during the shutdown.
Medicare and Medicaid will remain largely unaffected, and state health insurance exchanges will launch today as planned.
Yet, the shutdown's impact will derail many medical research efforts. In a statement in response to the shutdown, Darrell G. Kirch, MD, president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges, said:
"As the primary federal agency responsible for supporting medical research, the ability of the National Institutes of Health to provide funding will be disrupted, slowing progress and in some instances stopping active research that improves health and the quality of life through new treatments and cures."
The GOP hopes that the shutdown will push Democrats to accept the individual mandate delay, but Senate leaders have suggested they are unwilling to acquiesce.
The shutdown is the result of a political power play, and its impacts have negative consequences for many federal agencies.
Not to mention, voters aren't fans of shutdown. Will the GOP's efforts backfire?
According to one poll, 47 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for members of Congress who support shutting down the federal government if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act isn't defunded.
History also suggests this could occur. Newt Gingrich led the charge to cut federal spending that resulted in two government shutdowns in the mid-1990s, which proved costly to both the federal government and the conservative party. According to a CBS News report that examined the Office of Management and Budget's analysis of the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns:
"[The] two government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996, totaling 27 days, cost the federal government $1.4 billion. That's over $2 billion in today's dollars on costs like back pay to furloughed federal workers and uncollected fines and taxes. That number doesn't begin to account for intangible losses in worker morale and productivity, and confidence in the federal government."
While polls suggest support for ObamaCare has dropped among Americans, do Americans' distaste for government shutdowns outweigh this?
According to an NPR article on "A Short History of Government Shutdowns," the shutdown of 1995 actually helped President Clinton win reelection. (For the record Newt Gingrich is critical of the current shutdown). Will the shutdown of 2013 have a similar unintended result in garnering favor for the Democrats?
What do you think?